Fresno couple rejoices over daughter’s start of school, but opposes campus police

“I loved going to school every day. You are going to learn so much.”

“I made so many friends!”

These are the hopeful words we have been saying to our oldest child as she prepares to start kindergarten at a Fresno Unified school. We want it to be an exciting adventure of learning, fun, and friendships.

But lately, when we talk to her about the joy of starting “big kid” school, there are other disquieting feelings creeping below the surface — grief and anxiety that settle us into silence. The faces and names of 19 children appear in our minds. Children who, along with two beloved teachers, were murdered in their classroom by a single gunman armed with a semi-automatic rifle in the town of Uvalde, in our home state of Texas, on May 24. The shooting lasted for over an hour, while 19 armed officers inexplicably waited right outside the classroom and several dozen more officers stood outside the school restraining and handcuffing terrified, frantic parents.

In the moments when sadness and heartache don’t overtake us, anger does. Anger at the carelessness for human life, of all ages, that leads to lax gun laws. And anger at the idea promoted by Texas politicians afterwards that cops and armed staff in schools somehow keep children safe, despite the mounting evidence emerging from a quagmire of lies and inconsistent storylines that the Uvalde police did not do that.

This idea is also supported by the mayor of Fresno and the Fresno police chief, who announced their intention to put more police in Fresno schools even on the same day that it became clear how little the Uvalde police did to save the 19 children and two teachers who are dead, the 17 children who were injured, and the survivors who will live with the trauma forever.

In case you missed it, the city of Fresno released its proposed budget for the 2022-2023 fiscal year, which includes a 5% increase in the police budget and 13 officers assigned to Fresno Unified middle schools.

In 2013, there was a similar push for putting more police in schools after the deadly mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newton, Connecticut, when a gunman killed 20 first-graders and 6 teachers and staff. A congressional report found no conclusive evidence that police prevented crime or mass shootings in schools. Meanwhile, more studies find that police in schools are associated with more low-level arrests and school suspensions, especially for Black students, other students of color, and students with disabilities. This is a problem for Fresno Unified, where over 90 percent of enrolled students are students of color and thousands of students have a documented disability.

As parents in the Fresno Unified School District who want nothing more than for our two young children to feel safe and supported at school, we are urging our fellow parents to join us in asking the Fresno Unified Board of Trustees to oppose this plan and instead pursue a more multipronged, creative approach to school safety and student well-being. One that more strongly invests in the socioemotional programs that Fresno Unified has developed and that incorporates more mentoring and support without putting at-risk students at further risk of criminalization.

Much like Advance Peace Fresno has done for our community, there is evidence that mentoring programs and socioemotional support in schools could be the critical intervention that some of our students need to prevent in-school violence, reduce disciplinary action, and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. Additionally, advocates have previously called for a greater investment in unarmed campus safety assistants, who must be trained to respond in harm-reductive ways.

We know you are scared, in a way that only parents can be, about the safety of our children in this violent world. We are scared, too. But the argument that increasing police presence in schools makes our children safer is just not held up by compelling evidence.

The children of Uvalde became everybody’s children on May 24. Think of the children of Fresno as all our children right now.

What should we advocate for instead, to secure the safety and happiness of all our children?

With every argument in favor of police in schools — that they provide safety, security, connection — we should ask two questions: Where is the evidence? And, are there other ways to meet those needs that do not bring the risk of more harm to our children?

These are the questions we, as parents, pose to the city of Fresno and Fresno Unified leaders.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 11:48 AM.