Sacramento City Unified votes to sever contract with city police

Sacramento City Unified board members approved a 2020-2021 school district budget on Thursday, and did not include a contract with the Sacramento City Police Department, ultimately severing ties with the Student Resource Officer program.

The current contract, which provides a sergeant and three non-school-site-based officers who rove among campuses throughout the year, expires on June 30.

In lieu of a $600,000 contract, President Jessie Ryan directed Superintendent Jorge Aguilar to draft a resolution to create an Alternative School Safety Task Force that includes representatives from groups including the African American Achievement Task Force, Community Advisory Committee, labor groups, parents, staff and students.

The task force would work to develop safety strategies, including how to define safety and an antiracist school discipline policy, and how to best spend the $600,000 redirected from the police contract.

“As we are making a commitment to take this bold action and move away from an investment with SROs, we have to be as courageous, and as focused in dismantling systemic inequities by recognizing the role systemic racism plays in the classroom, on the school site, and at every level of our education,” Ryan said on Thursday. “And if we believe by this action alone, we are going to meet the needs of a community that has for far too long been left behind, then we are doing our community a great disservice.”

The board will take action on the task force proposal in July.

Sacramento City Unified once had about 20 SROs from the Sacramento Police Department, with one officer assigned to each of the district’s high schools. In recent years, that number dwindled to eight, as the district began to shift to alternative safety and restorative practices. The district now has three officers and a sergeant in the contract that ends on Tuesday.

Debates about the necessity of officers on campus have resurfaced across the country after the police killing of Minneapolis man George Floyd. In Sacramento, the debate sprouted multiple times, particularly after the shooting death of Stephon Clark. In 2019, Sacramento City Unified reduced the number of officers on campus significantly, no longer having officers stationed at high schools.

But activists and community organizations have long called for the district to end the contract completely, stating that Black and brown youth were disproportionately targeted.

The ACLU says school officials are more likely to refer incidents on campus to officers if they involve students of color.

Native Americans are 3.4 times more likely, Black students are 2.7 times more likely, and Hawaiian and Pacific Islander students are 1.4 times more likely to be referred to an SRO, according to the ACLU. Students with disabilities make up 12 percent of the nation’s student population, but make up 23 percent of police referrals and 23 percent of arrests.

This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 1:08 PM.