Classrooms Over Cruisers: A Community Organizer's Blueprint for Removing Police from Schools

Across the United States, hundreds of thousands of students encounter law enforcement officers before they encounter a school counselor. The school-to-prison pipeline is not an accident — it is a budget choice, replicated in district after district, that prioritizes policing over care. This guide is for the educators, parents, students, and organizers ready to reverse that choice.

The Anatomy of a Harmful Investment

School Resource Officers — law enforcement personnel stationed in K-12 schools — became a fixture of American public education largely in the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine shooting. Federal funding through the COPS in Schools program accelerated their proliferation, and today an estimated 14 million students attend schools with a police officer but no counselor on staff. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of one counselor per 250 students; the national average sits near one per 430. Meanwhile, SRO contracts in large urban districts can cost $100,000 to $200,000 per officer annually — funds drawn directly from educational budgets.

The research on what that investment produces is damning. A 2019 study published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis found that the presence of SROs was associated with a 6 percent increase in middle school arrests and no measurable improvement in school safety outcomes. A separate analysis by Chalkbeat found that students in schools with police were significantly more likely to be suspended, expelled, or referred to the juvenile justice system for behaviors — like fighting, profanity, or defiance — that previous generations handled through administrative discipline.

Black students, students with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ youth bear the heaviest burden of this arrangement. Black students are arrested at school at a rate more than twice that of their white peers, even when controlling for behavior and offense type. For students with disabilities, a mental health crisis in the classroom can become a criminal record before the day ends.

What the Evidence Supports Instead

The case for redirecting SRO funding is not built on ideology alone. It is built on the accumulated evidence of what actually keeps young people safe, engaged, and academically successful.

Mental health counselors reduce disciplinary referrals, improve attendance, and provide early intervention for students experiencing trauma — the root driver of most school behavioral incidents. Research from the Rand Corporation found that comprehensive school mental health services produced measurable improvements in academic performance and reductions in disciplinary actions.

Restorative justice programs replace punitive discipline with structured processes that repair harm, restore relationships, and keep students in school. Denver Public Schools implemented restorative justice practices district-wide beginning in 2014. Within four years, out-of-school suspensions dropped by 44 percent. The racial discipline gap narrowed substantially. Graduation rates improved.

Credible messenger and community intervention programs — often led by formerly incarcerated community members with direct knowledge of street dynamics — have demonstrated efficacy in interrupting cycles of violence that SROs are structurally ill-equipped to address.

The question is not whether alternatives work. The question is how communities build the political will to demand them.

Case Studies in Transition

Portland, Oregon

In June 2020, following sustained pressure from student organizers and community groups, Portland Public Schools voted to end its contract with the Portland Police Bureau, removing officers from all district high schools. The district redirected approximately $1 million annually toward community-based mental health supports, restorative practices coordinators, and student wellness centers. Student advocacy groups, particularly those led by Black students, were central to the campaign — a model of youth-led organizing that other districts should study closely.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis Public Schools terminated its SRO contract with the Minneapolis Police Department in June 2020, redirecting $1.1 million toward counselors and culturally responsive support staff. The transition was not without friction — the district navigated competing demands from families who feared the removal of police would increase violence — but organizers built trust through sustained community engagement, town halls, and transparent data-sharing about the harms of the existing model.

Oakland, California

The Oakland Unified School District has operated without traditional SROs for years, instead investing in restorative justice coordinators, community schools, and partnerships with community-based organizations. Oakland's approach is instructive not only for its outcomes but for its political durability: by embedding the alternative infrastructure deeply into the district's operational identity, advocates made reversal politically costly.

Building Your Campaign: A Practical Framework

Removing police from schools is a winnable campaign, but it requires strategic groundwork. The following framework is designed for organizers working at the district level.

Step One: Map the Money

File public records requests with your school district to obtain the full cost of SRO contracts — including overtime, equipment, and administrative overhead. Many districts obscure the true figure by distributing costs across multiple budget lines. Compile a comparative analysis showing what the same dollars could fund: counselors, social workers, restorative justice coordinators, or extracurricular programs. Make this data visual, accessible, and shareable.

Step Two: Document the Harm

Partner with student groups, parent organizations, and legal aid clinics to collect testimonials and data on school-based arrests, suspensions, and disciplinary referrals disaggregated by race, disability status, and gender. Human stories move school boards in ways that spreadsheets do not. Build a community archive of harm that is both quantitatively rigorous and humanly compelling.

Step Three: Build a Broad Coalition

Effective campaigns align teachers' unions, parent-teacher associations, faith communities, civil rights organizations, and youth-led groups under a shared demand. Anticipate opposition from police unions and sympathetic board members — and prepare responses grounded in evidence, not just values. Identify board members whose districts include the highest-impacted schools and focus constituent pressure accordingly.

Step Four: Propose the Alternative

Do not allow the campaign to be framed solely as removal. Arrive at every meeting with a concrete reinvestment proposal: specific positions, specific programs, and specific community partners ready to deliver them. School boards are more likely to vote for a transition when they can point to a credible plan for what comes next.

Step Five: Sustain the Pressure

School board meetings, budget hearings, and public comment periods are not one-time events — they are recurring opportunities. Rotate speakers. Bring students to the microphone. Track board members' votes publicly. The districts that have succeeded in removing SROs did so through sustained, organized, multi-year pressure — not single-moment confrontations.

The Larger Stakes

The fight to remove police from schools is inseparable from the broader project of abolition. Every student arrested in a hallway is a potential entry point into a carceral system designed to retain them. Every counselor hired in place of an officer is an act of structural resistance — a declaration that the purpose of public education is liberation, not containment.

Schools are among the few public institutions where communities retain meaningful democratic control. That control is an asset. Use it.