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  • Letter To Neff Hite SPOs

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    Ian Gavigan
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    Councilwoman Gym wrote this letter to the SRC and SDP regarding school police officers and the use of force against students.

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    Letter to Neff Hite SPOs

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    Councilwoman Gym wrote this letter to the SRC and SDP regarding school police officers and the use of force against students.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    20 views3 pages

    Letter To Neff Hite SPOs

    Uploaded by

    Ian Gavigan
    Councilwoman Gym wrote this letter to the SRC and SDP regarding school police officers and the use of force against students.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    of 3
    hi CITY OF PHILADELPHIA CITY COUNCIL Pra 0 ‘May 17, 2016 Marjorie Neff, Chait, School Reform Commission William Hite, Superintendent School District of Philadelphia 440 N. Broad Street Philadelphia, PA 19130 Dear Chairwoman Neff and Superintendent Hite: (We are writing to raise questions and concems about the School Districts policies regarding. school police officers” (SPOs) use of force and physical restraint against District students Recently, 2 troubling video - which appears to iavolve an SPO using extreme physical restraint against a student at Benjamin Franklin High School has thrust these issues back into public attention. We call onthe School District of Philadelphia to conduct a thorough investigation into the incident at Benjamin Franklin and publicly communicate its findings. As elected officals, we ‘unequivocally oppose the use of fore against students, especially an school grounds. We approach this situation with the utmost seriousness In addition o an investigation of this specific incident, we write to inquire futher into the School Disirct’s policies regarding the training of school police offices win are Distiet employees; we also write to request information on the School District's policies regarding the use of physical restraints against students. This isnot the first ime the use of force against Philadelphia students has elicited significant publi concem, Several yeas ago, media reports shoved that officers at Benjamin Franklin High had deployed pepper spray against students." At the time, there was very litle accounting ofthe incident, but concerns were raised back then about officer training, especially the need for the Diatect to implement around restorative justice and conflict de-escalatiou ststegies, Since 2014, the School Police Diversion Program has prepared police who are employees of the Philadelphia Police Department to interact with students and use trauma-informed strategies that de-escalate conflict and work toward restorative practices, This program is already showing notable reductions in the prevalence of school-based arrests " Public Schoo Notebook. "A call for an investigation it repeted use of pepper spay by plc in school bra” ‘Dee 21,2013 tp thenetebonkonicle/2013 27-bit nt epted-se-o popper stray policesrachoal- baw However, its our understanding that SPOs, such asthe District employee involved in the ecent ‘Benjamin Franklin incident, are not provided with the same level of traning and preparation as City police officers who work with students. Indeed, we know of no District or State mandate that limits or contains dhe se of force and physical restraint for SPOs interacting with students. ‘This is cause for great concern, We believe that there must be an extremely high standard to permit the use of physical restraint and/or force on students Given the opacity of current poliies revarding the use of physical restraint and force by SPOS, ‘we request that the Distrit do the following: 1. Publicly condemn unnecessary and/or excessive physical force agains students, especially on school grounds. 2. Publicly release on its website all School Police Directives and standards for SPOs, as ‘well as how the District accounts for and trains officers to responsibly carry out their positions within schools. 43. Ifthe District bas no such standards or guidelines, we call on the Distriet to develop formal policies that follow national best-practces 4. Establish a complaint procedure through which students and paren can raise concems about the operation of security staf in schools. Oakland Unified Sehool Distict has adopted such a process." ‘Thank you for your attention to this critical issue, and we would appreciate a reply to the ‘concems raised above. Sincerely, mnie. of

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