GENUP, BAStA AND ENGAGE FREMONT URGE FREMONT UNIFIED TO REMOVE POLICE FROM SCHOOLS

For Immediate Release

November 5, 2020

Fremont, CA — The Fremont Unified School District’s (the District) School Resource Officer (SRO) Task Force (Task Force) has released its final report, recommending that the District remove police officers from its schools. Instead of continuing the program, it recommends that the District invest its $838,000 contribution to the $2.5 million SRO program into proactive and preventative approaches to student safety, including hiring trained mental health professionals and implementing restorative practices at all school sites. The Task Force also encouraged the District to revisit its guidance on law enforcement interactions, including the adoption of policies on the questioning of students and what incidents warrant law enforcement.

Generation Up (GENup) and Bay Area Student Activists Fremont (BAStA Fremont), two student-based activist groups, and Engage Fremont, a Fremont-based community organization, urge the District to adopt the recommendations of the Task Force.

The approximately 70-page report detailed several key findings, including:

• The SRO program has no assessable or measurable goals.

• There is no required parental notification when police interact with students until after students are taken into custody or arrested.

• The District does not keep any records of SRO interactions with students and neither the District nor the Fremont Police Department (FPD) keep data on admonishments.

• Records from the FPD show that Black and Latinx students have been disproportionately arrested over the past five years.

• While there exist certain restrictions on SROs being involved in school discipline, site administration routinely involves SROs in routine discipline matters under the guise of counseling or admonishments.

• Due to unfilled student mental health needs in the district, SROs often serve as informal counselors to fill gaps, despite only receiving 40-60 hours of training, far less than the years required for nurses, counselors, psychologists, or behavior specialists employed by the district.

These efforts are part of a larger national reckoning on police officers in schools, sparked by the May 25 killing of George Floyd. Several local branches of national organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Missouri and the Arlington National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) have urged school districts to remove police officers from school campuses. In June, the San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified School District’s school boards voted unanimously to remove police officers from their campuses. The Alum Rock and East Side Union school districts (each in San Jose) did as well.

The Fremont Unified School District’s school board will vote on the Task Force’s recommendations at their November 12th meeting. Live or written public comment can be submitted in advance of the school board meeting. Registration for the school board meeting can be found here.

Prior to the vote, GENup Fremont is hosting a town hall on the SRO Task Force’s recommendations this Saturday, 11/7, at 3p PT. All Fremont community members are welcome and encouraged to attend - registration for the Zoom town hall is found at bit.ly/keepingallkidssafe.