Protect Our Children
After a failed school board motion to suspend Edmonton’s school resource officer (SRO) program, police will remain in schools this September.
Bashir talks about his obstacles in uncovering information about the program, while Oumar meets with a teacher who provides exclusive insight into her horrific experience with an SRO.
Content Warning
This episode contains racist comments from a school board trustee from 4:18 to 4:36.
A high school teacher describes a traumatizing incident involving an SRO and a Black student from 25:00 to 27:00.
This teacher recounts incidents of sexual assault from 28:00 to 30:15, and a non-consensual relationship between a student and an SRO from 33:20 to 35:10.
Cst. Matt Leblanc
We’re there. We’re there everyday, we're a part of these kids’ lives every day.
🎵 (Dramatic music)
Sgt. Kelly Rosnau
We are in partnership with both the Edmonton Public and Edmonton Catholic Schools, to have officers in uniform in schools on a regular basis. They start and end their day here, they interact with the kids, of course they enforce the laws, but they’re also engaged in proactive things: presentations, coaching, mentoring, those kind of things.
🎵 (Podcast theme)
Oumar Salifou (Host)
Hi, I’m Oumar Salifou, and you are listening to Is This For Real? — a podcast about policing and anti-Black racism in Edmonton. Today we’re going to be talking about the school resource officer program. And I’m sitting here with Bashir Mohamed, who’s a local writer, activist and, I’d say, community member. How’s it going, Bashir?
Bashir Mohamed
It's going well, I’m excited to talk about this program. It’s really important.
Oumar
Do you want to tell me why the SRO program is really important?
Bashir
Yeah, I mean the SRO program is important to understand because it’s an over $1 million budget item. It’s kind of surreal when you think about it because this million dollar budget item puts police officers in our schools. Their mandate is to effectively to police and surveill our kids. And, you know, people talk about how there’s pros and cons to the program, but kind of the surreal thing about all this is that there’s been no review. There’s been no public review of this program since its existence, and we’re just expected to believe that it works. Especially with this moment we’re in, I think it's important to speak about this because we just don’t understand it. And I think that’s core.
Oumar
So going into the events of the last couple of months here in Edmonton. The Edmonton Public School Board has reacted to the newfound focus on policing by deciding to review the SRO program. And they had a meeting essentially where a motion was tabled to actually disband the program completely.
Bashir
Suspend it.
Oumar
Suspend the program, yes, while the review is happening. And then, once the review is finished, they can decide whether or not they want to keep SROs in our schools.
Bashir
Yeah, and the meeting was a little wild. I don’t know if you want to give a recap of what happened.
Oumar
It was a very, very long meeting, and this SRO item was just one of the items on the agenda. And essentially it came near the very end, and the chair of the school board was pretty insistent on kind of saying that the school board doesn’t have facts, they don’t have any evidence right now on whether or not SROs are a problem in our schools and whether or not they should be suspended while the review is happening. So she defended not suspending the program.
Bashir
The school board, they actually had a vote to suspend the program. And the wild thing was that the vote was tied, and there was a bunch of other drama. I don’t know if you want to go over it briefly to give some context.
Oumar
So essentially what happened was at the very end of the meeting, one of the school trustees... I’m blanking on her name, do you want to tell me her name?
Bashir
Yeah. It was Cheryl Johner, Ward A.
Oumar
Yeah, so Cheryl Johner essentially spoke up at the end of the meeting. And we’re going to play the clip for you here, but she said an incredibly racist thing about how students in her school zone. And after saying that racist thing, they just voted and the vote was tied. And essentially it was a situation where, because the vote was tied, they did not suspend the SROs.
Sarolta Saskiw (CityNews)
Developing news tonight, Edmonton public school trustee Cheryl Johner has resigned from her position effective immediately. She quit less than 24 hours after this comment about refugees and police in schools.
Trustee Cheryl Johner
When those students sometimes enter our schools, they can be violent there as well. And I feel that the safety of students is critically important, that other students feel safe as they go to their own schools.
Sarolta Saskiw
School board chair Trisha Estabrooks accepted the resignation.
Trustee Trisha Estabrooks
What she said is racist, it’s wrong and it’s completely unacceptable.
Sarolta Saskiw
When CityNews asked Estabrooks why she did not immediately respond in the meeting to Johner’s comment, she simply says she did not hear it. Bashir Mohamed says Johner was once his trustee; he calls her comments hurtful.
Bashir
I was actually one of those refugee students she’s talking about. So me listening to her, she was basically saying that, when she was a trustee, she saw me as a violent kid who police needed to watch over.
Sarolta Saskiw
Johner apologized in her resignation, saying her comments were inappropriate and immediately regrettable. The vote to keep school resource officers in Edmonton Public Schools was tied. Now the question is whether to look at the issue again with Johner not casting a tying vote.
Trustee Trisha Estabrooks
Revisiting that, I wouldn’t say it’s outside the realms of possibilities. Always open to have that conversation outside into the future. But right now that is our board’s decision.
Bashir
They need to suspend it as soon as possible. It doesn't make sense to have a program in place that you know nothing about. And keep it in place until you are done with a review that can take maybe up to a year.
Sarolta Saskiw
Edmonton Public Schools will now have an outside agency review having police officers in schools.
Oumar
After saying that racist thing, they just voted and the vote was tied. And essentially it was a situation where, because the vote was tied, they did not suspend the SROs. And we knew that someone who said an incredibly racist thing voted in favour of not suspending them, yet the vote still stands to this day, and we’re not reviewing it. So if Johner had not been on the school board that day, we wouldn’t have SROs in September. The program would have been suspended. Do you want to go into that?
Bashir
Yeah, I guess to just emphasize this a little more. When we speak about systemic racism, it’s racism upholding systems that hurt Black and Indigenous kids for example, this is literally an example where the vote passed because of racism. If she wasn’t there, the vote would have failed. And it’s just surreal. So there was actually a lot of controversy, it blew up on social media. And trustee Trisha Estabrooks, who was actually one of the people who for the program, made a motion to reconsider. Basically, the logic was this vote was flawed because of that racism. And it goes to another meeting, right? And at the meeting they have the same motion, and somebody is there. Do you want to tell us what happens then?
Oumar
I actually don’t think I know what happened. Because I thought this would be going in September. What happened?
Bashir
So what happened was everyone was there who originally voted. And you assume that you know this vote is going to be easy. A motion to reconsider requires a unanimous vote before the motion is reintroduced. So what needs to happen is that everyone needs to agree that we will talk about this again. That didn’t happen because a trustee who wasn’t present at the previous meeting, Ken Gibson, was there.
No one knows why he didn’t show up at the previous meeting (the really important one), but he shows up to this one and he’s the only guy that votes to not reconsider the motion. So it dies! And it’s wild because everyone’s gearing up for this huge passionate debate, and this guy that wasn’t even there walks in. Nobody knows why he wasn’t there.
Everyone was super depressed, I remember seeing the reactions live. This is why I guess we’re talking about this now, because it comes back September 8, or at least everyone is suggesting it will come back. Trustees are saying yes, we will bring this back September 8, which is the next board meeting. So I guess that’s why we’re talking about this now.
And after the first vote, Trisha Estabrooks made these comments saying that it’s important to listen. How we truly need to listen to people. Even though trustees weren’t listening to people who have been calling for a review of this program for years, she made these comments. And you can hear them now.
Trustee Trisha Estabrooks
You know, there is process that needs to be followed. And part of that process again is listening to people, right? Truly listening to people and having a conversation about the role of police officers in our schools.
Bashir
We think it’s important to listen to people and people that have things to say about the SRO program. Oumar, you have a guest who you’ll speak to later, can you tell us a little bit about this person and why their story is important?
Oumar
I talked to an Edmonton high school teacher, and essentially they have a first hand experience with what it’s like to have an SRO in their school. And the damage and the impact that the police have done in her community. She’s seen it over the years, she has direct experience with it. And I think it’s one of those things where she’s seen students be directly targeted. She’s students be harassed.
So when we talk about the SRO program and we talk about listening to people, I think she’s a perfect example of who we need to listen to. We should be listening to teachers. We should be listening to students. We should be listening to the people who actually have to be directly impacted by the police. We shouldn’t be listening to school board trustees. We shouldn’t be listening to police administration. We shouldn’t be listening to school administration, because it’s clear that these peoples’ only agenda is keeping police in schools. And keeping police happy, and I think that is completely wrong.
Bashir
For sure, and for some context to emphasize that point, the superintendents of both school boards in Edmonton actively support this program to the extent where the superintendent of the Catholic School Board actually wants them in elementary schools. Like, they straight up said that. And if you think about that it's kind of surreal. There is no other program where you spend over a million dollars and actually increase it without doing some sort of review.
Oumar
In order for you to truly understand the impact that our interview with this high school teacher is going to have, I think it’s really important to establish a foundation. What does it mean for Edmonton students in our community to have school resource officers in all of our junior highs, all of our high schools, almost all of them. What does that mean, Bashir?
Bashir
I mean... (sighs) it’s just surreal. You know, I talked to a lot of people who actually didn’t have cops in schools. And it’s kind of a strange system. And you’re right, we do need a foundation to understand these problems. So anyways, I produced this clip for the podcast. It’s kind of my experience trying to understand the program.
Cst. Matt Leblanc
We’re there. We’re there everyday, we’re part of these kids lives everyday.
🎵 (Dramatic music)
There was a homicide a couple years ago where there were suspects outstanding, and they just had a description of a vehicle and a nickname. And they came to me asking “do you know this person?” And of course right away, knowing your kids inside and out, you think “oh yeah, of course this is who it is.” So by knowing who your kids are and what they are doing, we can not only help the SRO unit, but we can help the EPS in its entirety.
🎵 (Sentimental music)
Sgt. Kelly Rosnau
So the officers are dealing with day to day investigations, day to day interactions, but they are also engaged with training that also allows them to deal with the extraordinary. The occurrences of threats both internal and external to a school.
🔫 (Gunshot sound)
Officer
Drop the gun! Drop the gun!
🔫 (Gunshot sound)
Bashir
I just want to pause here for a moment. What you just heard was an active shooter exercise. Now this is important because Edmonton police often claim there are active threats in our schools, that students bring guns to schools. They do this to justify their armed presence. But this isn’t true, and we can prove this. In June, acting Staff Sergeant Em Chan was on Edmonton AM and made this claim. This is that interview.
On Tuesday Acting Staff Sgt. Em Chan made the claim that students are bringing guns to school "twice a year."
— Is This For Real? (@isthisforrealca) June 25, 2020
Later that day, Edmonton Public School Board Superintendent Darrel Robertson denied the claim and said that Chan made an "unfortunate comment." pic.twitter.com/4tETQ2ADM5
Staff Sgt. Em Chan
Unfortunately even this year we’ve had, um, people bringing guns and knives to schools, drugs. We’ve managed shooting and bomb threats. We have violent intruders, so we’re perfectly positioned to deal with those and deescalate quickly.
Mark Connelly (Edmonton AM Host)
How many of these instances happened, how many times would someone bring a gun to school?
Staff Sgt. Em Chan
Well, thankfully not very much. We are in Edmonton after all. It does happen I would say conservatively, it still happens twice a year in our schools I would say, Mark.
Mark Connelly
Okay. Now police officers would be armed as they would be anywhere, right?
Staff Sgt. Em Chan
Well, and that’s the whole package. You know, in our agreement with the schools. And it goes back to safety.
Mark Connelly
So they are armed.
Mark Connelly
We are. Yes, that's right.
Bashir
Later that day, the Edmonton Public School Board had a public meeting. Trustee Bridget Sterling at the meeting asked superintendent Darryl Roberson if claims like this were accurate. Here’s Bridget Sterling and Darryl Robertson’s exchange at that meeting.
Trustee Bridget Sterling
What I hear often is SROs saying students are bringing guns to school, and I don't know. How often is this actually a violent incident, and how often is it a kid stole another kid’s hoodie? We need to know what these incidents actually are and a part of the public reporting processes we need needs to account for that.
Superintendent Darryl Robertson
The comment about bringing guns to school. If you’re referring to the radio interview this morning that happened, that was an unfortunate comment. We have had replica guns in schools that have been dealt with, and it’s not okay to bring replica guns to school, and our kids know that and were clear with that.
You would know as a board, because I would let you know, if there were an incident of an actual gun in our schools for sure, because I aspire to be completely transparent with our board at all times. So that was an unfortunate comment that may have been taken out of context, and I’ll leave it at that.
Bashir
The problem with claims like this is that they spread unwarranted fear. They are designed to make our schools appear more dangerous than they actually are. This is a problem and journalists should challenge this.
It is important to reflect on this information before we continue with the police video. This is because videos like this serve as a type of propaganda. We need to ask ourselves who benefits when we give the public fear and make them feel that our schools are a threat.
🎵 (Sentimental music)
Cst. Matt Leblanc
In doing this training, it equips us with the ability to keep the staff and students safe.
Sgt. Kelly Rosnau
That training will make them better and more competent in being able to deal with those emerging issues as they arise.
Principal Rick Paulitsch (Ross Sheppard High School)
It’s really a tag team, we support each other in all the different types of things that we can in regards to safe and caring schools and initiatives of making sure well being is looked after of our students
🎵 (Cheerful, upbeat music)
Sgt. Kelly Rosnau
We all have a calling, and for these police officers, they are bringing their experiences from the street, their life experiences into a school setting. And they’ll be able to apply that to kids.
Principal Rick Paulitsch
School resource program is fantastic, and I believe the Edmonton police service offers the best program that I’ve seen.
Cst. Matt Leblanc
We are the school resource officer unit and this is who we are.
🎵 (Dramatic music)
Bashir
I watched that video again, and I noticed something familiar. I realized that I recognized one of the officers, and I also recognized the hallways of the school they were in. It was my high school, Queen Elizabeth. Located on the north side of Edmonton. This made me feel weird because I remember what our constable would do to my friends. He would fine my friends who were just low income kids, and expect them to pay hundred of dollars for small bylaw infractions. He would also target my friends for weed and give them criminal charges. From what I saw, these cops were a surveillance tool a quick way to the downtown law courts.
These experiences were painful, but I’m not sure if you’ll believe me.
One thing about being Black in Edmonton is that you wonder if your experiences are real, your experiences with racism. This is because it’s almost impossible to prove they are real. And the SRO program is the perfect example of this. Something we need to examine more closely. Doing this will allow us to build a foundation so we can see the true scale of these problems.
I first asked for data on the SRO program a few years ago. I actually went directly to the school board and spoke at their meeting. I raised concerns about a school to prison pipeline and that Black and Indigenous kids were disporationalty targeted. I spoke about the need to examine and eliminate this program. Every trustee looked at me, but they did nothing. So I was forced to file for a freedom of information request asking for all SRO data from 2012 to present along with race based data.
It took a few months, but I got a response back in May 2019. They said they had the information, but it was not organized. They said if I want to have the data, I would have to pay $64,027.50. I'm currently working with a lawyer to appeal this fee and to have it waived.
Regardless, we do have some data on this program. It’s from a 2012 presentation they gave to city council. I found the Google Drive link online, and saw it was still active. I also noticed they left their own speaking notes on. So I made a copy and here’s what I learned from that document:
In 2012, there were 3,451 police actions in schools. That breaks down to 181 per school. This ranges from a minor fine to a serious charge. I also learned that SROs run an entrapment program called the bait phone program. On their own speaking notes they refer to students as ‘suspects.’ Basically, they take a Samsung phone, they put a tracker on it, and they wait for a student to take it. They say that the goal of this program is to apprehend these ‘suspects’ and to use the criminal justice system as a deterrent to thieves. Finally, I was made aware that school boards pay 50% of an individual's officer salary. This can be upwards of $50,000.
There was no race based data but, despite that, I learned that my experiences were real. Nobody can dispute this hard data and, because of this renewed moment of BLM, trustees have decided to do their own review. And I personally feel like that is a long time coming, but at least it’s a start. I truly hope that the school board is able to uncover more hard data in their review, because I believe the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one. I apologize for all this information, but it’s necessary. Systemic racism is designed to appear complicated because doing so prevents criticism, and it also prevents movements that try to end the systemic racism.
Voice Actor
The next portion of this episode of Is This For Real? is the interview with an Edmonton high school teacher whose identity has been hidden. Some of the topics in the interview may be triggering to some, so we’ve included time stamps on our website and showed notes for each section of the interview that you can choose to skip. The interview is also voiced by an actor reading a script of the original conversation. Here is the interview now.
Oumar
So I guess probably a good place to start would be just, a little bit more information about you, you know. Why did you decide to become a teacher?
Teacher
It was one of the first few jobs I sort of recognized in the world that I could see myself doing, and I’m very lucky in that I have good experiences in schools. I had good experiences with teachers, I could always imagine myself as a teacher. I could see people that sort of looked like older versions of me, who were teachers. Now of course, because it’s (in) the news and it’s not new, (but) this whole conversation on race and policing is not a new conversation to teachers.
Oumar
When you started, what was your first impression of the SRO program and how did that impression evolve over the years?
Teacher
So I think in my first couple of years, when you’re a new teacher there’s so much that you are trying to figure out. There’s so much you are trying to understand, so you really just want to focus on doing your job. And it takes time to step back and see how schools work. And I think in my first couple years as a teacher, I understood. I understood there’s a police officer in the building, there’s a police officer attached to our school. And I don’t think I knew what their hours were, I don't think I knew what their responsibilities were.
I knew that occasionally they would show up in places you’d be surprised with. Like, oh hey, there’s a police officer playing bagpipes at the Remembrance Day assembly. That’s kind of a cool party trick to pull out. Okay. Or you would get an SRO that spends all of their time in their gym, working out at the gym that belongs to the school. And you think, oh that’s weird, we just have a guy in a uniform that works out here.
Oumar
The reality of the situation and something that Bashir mentioned when he told me your story is this situation where you had an SRO in your high school. Do you want to tell me specifically about this individual and what that story is all about?
Teacher
When you come into a school, there’s a lot you need to learn about. And obviously a lot of it is getting physically situated, right? Like, where is my classroom, where are my colleagues located at, and how do I get to… like, there’s more pressing matters, and I (had an) experience right off the bat where I realized in my first week that my SRO wasn’t an ally. But that my SRO was someone that you didn’t want to actively work with and that you would have to potentially shield students from.
And the SRO would ask me, “how’s it going with your students?” I said “oh, this is fine.” And we were going to have to go through the student hand book, and explaining those procedures we did. All the classic information of this is what you need to know about a fire drill, like these are the forms you need to sign. This is where you go to get your bus pass. All the basic info you will need at the beginning of the year.
And the SRO was there and I said “you would actually get a laugh out of this.” At one point in the planning, you would have to go through the student code of conduct. Like they cant bring weapons to school, and the whole class was kind of fixated on joking about… classic 15 year old kids had the conversation: “so what’s a weapon? Is a pencil a weapon?” Like very typical 15 year old conversation. So I said “you would get a kick out of this conversation” and told the SRO that we as a class agreed everything’s a weapon and not to bring anything to school. So I told him about how the whole class had this great laugh. I was like “one kid was really into what’s considered a weapon.” So the SRO asks “what’s the kid’s name?” And I said like “oh, he’s super funny, you would like him a lot.” And I dropped a name. And that was it, and we carried on our ways.
The next day, the kid gets pulled out of my class by the SRO and the SRO takes him to his office. For context, he has a separate office. It’s not attached to the main one. And he just reads this kid the Riot Act and questions this kid about why he wants to know about weapons, what is a weapon, what kind of weapons is he talking about, and leans right into him. And it comes to nothing because it can’t go anywhere other than “I know I know who you are, I got my eyes on you.” So here’s this big white dude yelling at a shorter, smaller, 15 year old Black boy, and the conversation was one that we all had as a class. You know, we had this conversation about, if you know kung fu then you’re not allowed in the building because, you know, because your body is a weapon. And so this conversation we had as a whole classroom. There wasn’t one person that was actively vetting for something upsetting.
As a teacher, I was mortified. I was horribly embarrassed that I had done this, and I very much feel like I did this to the kid and I didnt know how to protect this kid from the cop. And that this kid in his first week would feel like I had a problem with what we were all having as a conversation as a class, and that I would immediately rat him out to the SRO.
And the SRO would let him know that his high school experience was going to be under watch by this cop. That this is someone that doesn't care about students. That this is someone that doesn't care about our minority students. That this is someone that doesn’t care about our young women. That this is not an ally. This is not a good cop.
That’s when I personally started to get stories and I started to take note of this person in our school, and started to realize that this is a huge problem. If this a person that has the ability to stay in your high school for four years and be recognized by the staff as not a good person, and to be recognized as someone working to the detriments of students, and that there’s nothing to be done except for hope this is going to be his last year and that someone would replace him that’s better. Right? That's a really bad feeling as a teacher and as a person.
And you just start to see this as a person… I know I had an experience with an SRO who would not help students. So we had an issue with our female students who would be inappropriately touched in halls. Their butts would be slapped, or they would be grabbed. And they were feeling incredibly uncomfortable. And they were trying to figure out ways in which we could prevent this.
And it kept coming back to “we can’t do anything. It’s just a he said she said type of thing.” But we had cameras. We have cameras inside our buildings. These incidents would be caught on camera, and no one was willing to use the cameras. How mind blowing is that? Like we could use all the cameras all the time when property is stolen. A kid comes to class, gets distracted, and their bag is gone, right? We look at cameras to see who walked out of the classroom with that bag. And we track that bag down.
We want to know about who’s breaking into lockers? Cameras. We want to know about fighting? Cameras. We can look at the cameras for all these other things. But when girls are being touched inappropriately and no one would go to the cameras...
I knew for a fact that the SRO would use cameras to keep track of teachers. For instance, I would have conversations with teachers and their phone would ring. And they would be like “ugh, I have to take this because I know he can see me right now.” Or otherwise he would bring up “I saw your ignore my call. Saw it on the cameras.”
So he will use cameras for offences he wants to actively deal with. He will use cameras to keep tabs on people he wants to keep tabs on. But he wouldn’t use the cameras to help young girls that were being violated, that were being assaulted in our building. We really struggled because we felt that it was not a priority that he didn’t care and there was nothing that we could do for young girls, and girls were dropping out of school as a result.
Yes it’s terrifying to realize that if you had a bad day, they have a real ability to teach 15 year olds that cops aren’t your friends and in fact they’re here to arrest you.
That’s a struggle to imagine what role a police officer holds in a school that couldn’t and should be held by someone else. Because when I think of it, and when you ask people “why do you have cops in your schools?” A lot of the time the conversation goes to violence or drugs, and you have people saying and bringing these up. And I know teachers aren’t trained deescalate violence, and certainly we aren’t trained in addiction. But if I have a kid that needs to get high in order to get through schooI, I don’t want a cop to deal with them. If you have to get high on a 9am morning on a Tuesday in November, you don’t need a cop. You need a program. You need a counsellor. You need someone to help you. You don’t need a cop and you shouldn’t be criminalized for something like that.
So it was announced that he was going to be leaving our school for another school, and there was this great sense of relief. There was also a sort of horrible realization that he wanted some sort of farewell party, which was incredibly awkward because no one wants to celebrate this person and their time at our school.
And then the horror of realizing he was moving to the closest school. And the general assumption, we all knew this guy would just leave and talk about how he had to talk about courts or standard reasons to not be in the building, when he didn’t even want to be in our building. We thought, because he was so close by, he would constantly drop in and visit all of the time in his free time.
We stopped sort of hearing about him, though. And certainly, because the next school had an SRO and our new SRO would often team up and patrol the area surrounding the school with them, all of a sudden it wasn’t our former SRO coming in. It was someone else entirely. So we thought “oh. We had this person for 4 years. They had a person for a month. How did they figure it out? How did they crack this code?”
And that’s when stories came out from students. Because honestly students had more connections between the two schools than the teachers did. And students began relaying the horrifying stories. This should be taken with a grain of salt, because it’s information coming from students. And even if it’s from a student I trust, I know that a student network will exaggerate this.
But the story that came out was that the school had to immediately remove this SRO because of a relationship. A romantic relationship that he had with a female student. And the realization and horror of hearing it from students was different for me. But I think the worst realization is that they felt it was an inappropriate relationship, but they wrapped it up in the fact that it’s just because he’s older than she is. But not because she can’t possibly consent. If this is happening, it’s happening because of his position in power.
In my interactions with him over time, I certainly never felt comfortable as a teacher or as a professional, but I also never felt comfortable as a woman. I didn’t feel comfortable how he interacted with students, and I certainly never felt he had the best interests of female students at our school. And so I wouldn’t be surprised if he continued to have inappropriate connections and focus on some and ignore others at our school. I’m also just really frustrated that you know, whatever the reason was that they felt the need to remove him after a month that he's no longer an SRO, but he’s still a police officer.
And I’m not privy to any of those conversations and what would happen there, but it doesn’t appear to have any consequences other than that you don’t get to call in from a school anymore. Which is so disappointing because then that person gets to continue to pull in a paycheque and continue to be a bad cop, just somewhere else.
I don’t need a cop in the school to protect me. Most of our kids don’t need a police officer all day every day in a uniform. They are never allowed to be out of their uniform. They are always in uniform, and no one is saying that a police officer can’t come and volunteer their time in schools. I would love it if a police officer decided to use their free time to come and coach with teams, and to come and be a supervisor on a field trip, to come and speak to students about how they became a police officer. I would have no problem with a police officer actively choosing to be a part of a school. But, what I have a problem with is a police officer who takes a gig in a school and doesn’t realize that just the sight of them is terrifying to some students.
Oumar
So, now we are in an interesting position where these things are actually being taken seriously for probably the first time ever. And you know change isn’t happening and hasn’t happened yet, but we might be on the horizon of it. So what are your hopes for the SRO program after what you’ve seen since the death of George Floyd, and since we’re in this new moment. And especially after seeing how the trustees in the highest level of governance for your employer handled the situation so far. What do you hope will happen?
Teacher
I was pretty frustrated. There was the trustee that made the comment like “maybe we should ask police officers to be better,” and I think that was the general point she was trying to make. To essentially say how we encourage police officers to have these better connections with students and be better at their jobs. I thought this was just such a useless comment. Because in all my years of having police officers in schools, I have never seen a police officer be more like a teacher. What I have seen is administrators being more like police officers.
And that’s the thing that really scares me, that administrators now feel that police officers are an integral part of their ability to do their job. And that lends them the power to police their students. So now we see Principals in a system who have gauged a majority of their time in attempting to police their school. And the idea they are setting up an office and putting candy into a bowl on the desk, and behind them they are hanging up pictures of the top 50 most wanted minors in Edmonton. Right? Like what a strange thing to do as an SRO. To put pictures up of kids that are on the list of the most dangerous kids.
Bashir
Did that SRO have a poster of most wanted students? That’s kids on a wall, right?
Oumar
It’s hard to even imagine how this is acceptable in any way, shape, or form. We’re talking minors here. People that haven’t finished high school. And your face is up on a wall of a police officer in your school because you are a supposed criminal?
Bashir
Yeah. It’s messed up, and is it even legal? We should just call Avnish and ask him.
📞 (Phone ringing)
Avnish Nanda
Hey man.
Oumar
Hey Avnish. I’m calling to ask you about a question that we’re including in the SRO episode. So essentially, there was the SRO’s office and he had a poster plastered on the wall. And we wanted to ask you from a legal perspective, how could this be problematic or go against the law of this country?
Avnish
Well, I’m not sure what was on those posters. But it’d be the minors, there’s privacy issues there. There’s also a concern about whether the statements are true, it could be defamatory. Because you’re signalling to people that these people, these individuals whose faces are plastered on a wall did something, likely something wrong, likely something criminal. And if that’s not true, that’s a serious harm to someone’s reputation. I’m super surprised and concerned that a cop would do that, particularly with minor people in such a public way
Oumar
Yeah, I think that’s all I need. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us.
Teacher
It’s one of those things you see and can’t even stop yourself from saying “what is that?” And if I’m asking that, then the kids sitting in the seat and seeing that over the shoulder is asking “who are those kids?” Which then gets into this conversation of “you don’t want to be one of those kids. Let me tell you.” Right? And how horrifying it is to have that in the building, because if I can see it, anyone can see it. If I can see it, the Principal can see it. And why is something not being done about that? Or are they unable to? And again, if they are unable to say “please don’t bring your rifle to school, to a place where children are, to a place we’re supposed to learn,” how do you say “please take down your horrible displays of incarcerated youth”? I don't know.
They have the ability to put the kids in handcuffs. We know this. We know they put kids in handcuffs and walk them through our schools. We know they pin kids to the ground. We know they have the ability to arrest kids and take them away in squad cars. That they have the ability to arrest kids and take them away, and fine them, and ban kids from schools.
So the SRO has the ability to ban. To ban a kid from school. And that's just an insane amount of power. And I know people will say “oh, cops won’t do that. I know a good cop. I know of one that has a great relationship with my kid. And this one helped out with the soccer team. And that one went on the field trip.” But what if they are not? Because we know there are some that are not good. So with all of the things that they can do, what if one chooses not to?
Oumar
So, after hearing this episode I think a lot of people are going to be left with the question “what can I do?”
Bashir
If you are left wondering what I can I do, if you are confused, frustrated or whatever, this is your chance. Speak at that meeting. It’s free. Oumar, do you want to wrap this up?
Oumar
Yeah. I just want to thank anyone who’s listened to today’s episode and anyone who supported us on Patreon as well. We wouldn’t be able to do this without you. I would also like to thank the high school teacher who decided to speak with us. Her sharing her story I think is really important, and I’m eternally grateful that she took the time to speak with me. We are very, very, very excited to welcome a co-host for the show.
Bashir
Ooh, a co-host.
Oumar
Yeah, you heard that right.
Bashir
Is this person going to be consistent?
Oumar
This is going to be consistent. We are reorganizing our plan, and essentially bringing our co-host on as an equal partner in Let’s Find Out. I mean — (laughs)
Bashir
So for some context, Oumar used to work on this podcast called Let’s Find Out. It’s good, you should listen to it.
But, you were saying they’re an equal partner, does that mean equal pay and everything?
Oumar
That means equal pay between me and them, that means equal air time during the podcast. That means equal access to this really good platform. And I think that also means equal perspective. We’re going to really get to see their unique perspective on all these issues. And they have a pretty unique perspective. I’ll say that much.
Bashir
So when do we get a chance to hear this person?
Oumar
You’re going to be able to hear them for the first time starting in September. So definitely look forward to that.
Bashir
Sweet, I’m excited.
Oumar
I’m really excited too, man. It’s going to be really good. I think we’ll end it off there. Thank you again for listening, and we’ll see you in September.
🎵 (Podcast theme)