The purpose of this School Policing Toolkit is to equip students, caregivers, educators, policy makers, and advocates with resources so that they can understand the impacts of the policies and systems that result in students being policed and criminalized in their schools.
The Toolkit provides useful information about what to expect from police in schools, how to challenge inappropriate police behavior, and how to organize communities in order to push for systemic changes to school policing.
This School Policing Toolkit was created to provide information and tools to combat the school-to-prison pipeline. The school-to-prison pipeline is a term that describes the policies and practices—like the use of suspensions, expulsions, school police, and courts—that push students out of the classroom and increase the likelihood that they will endure trauma, experience academic difficulties, drop out of school, and come into contact with the justice system. The students who are disproportionately impacted by these policies and practices are Black, Latino, Native American, LGBTQ, and students with disabilities.
No student benefits from an education environment that prioritizes exclusion, criminalization, and discrimination over inclusion, support, and fairness. We hope that this Toolkit will be used to address individual needs and push for systemic changes!
This guide is not meant to provide legal advice, either general or specific. For legal advice, you should consult a lawyer.