Is bringing Police back into Ontario Schools the best idea? Community weigh in

BY PAUL JUNOR

The introduction of a private member motion by Kitchener South- Hespeler MPP Jess Dixon to bring police back into schools was passed successfully on December 5^th, 2024. The tabling of Motion 145 on December 3^rd, 2024, in the Ontario Legislature calls on the Ministry of Education to restore and facilitate police in school programs. The issue of police in Ontario schools has been a contentious and controversial one over the years.

There have been a lot of oppositions against school boards in the Greater Toronto Area, which had implemented the School Resource Officers (SRO) Programs. This has led to the cancellation of these programs in some boards due to the community’s disapproval of them.

The motion states, “That, in the opinion of this House, the Ministry of Education should encourage and support all publicly funded school boards to work in partnership with police services by maintaining Community School Liaison Officer programs to: support relevant programming, building positive relationships between students, officers and educators, and ensuring schools remain safe and healthy learning environments.”

All Ontario New Democrat Party MPPs, Green Party MPPs, and Independent Sarah Jama voted against the motion. Ontario Liberal Party MPPs were divided in their vote and all Ontario Progressive Conservative Party MPPs voted in favour of the motion.

The non-profit organization Policing-Free Schools has been very active against police officers in schools. It was founded by Andrea Vasquez Jimenez in 2022 who serves

as Director and Principal Consultant. Policing Free Schools’ mission is to, “End police

in-school programs towards uprooting policing/carcerality and co-create liberatory

educational spaces.” It is a community-based organization that is dedicated to catalyzing systemic changes and a paradigm shift for the co-creation of: transformative, healthy, equitable, life-affirming, liberatory, healing-centered and policing-free educational spaces.

On its FB page on December 5^th, it listed reasons why this motion is wrong. Some of the reasons include:

• Underpinning ideology and practices connected to the multiple ways that the Ontario government expands and funnels funds into police, policing and carceral systems, while chronically underfunding communities including schooling and educational spaces.
• Misinformation and disinformation being spread by PC MPPs. There is no evidence to support the notion that police-in-schools make educational spaces safer.
• There is however, ample evidence of the detrimental negative impacts of police-in-schools on students and particularly impacts: Black/African, diasporic, Indigenous, racialized 2SLGBTQQIA +, disabled, neurodivergent students with precarious immigration status and intersecting identities.
• Possible widespread implications of the motion across local spaces, across Ontario, national and beyond.
• Use as a justification for the Minister of Education to give a directive and/or mandate police-in-schools including: police-in-school programs across the province, and/or creation of a Bill for legislative changes.