School Policing

In 2023, tens of thousands of school police officers patrol campuses across the United States. School policing is often presented as the solution to school shootings. However, as we witnessed in Uvalde, hundreds of law enforcement officers were on the scene at Robb Elementary in May 2022, and the tragedy still occurred. At Texas Appleseed, our ongoing examination of this issue leads to the conclusion that school policing and surveillance create hardened school environments; these environments detrimentally burden Black and Brown children, LGBTQ young people, and kids with disabilities. School policing is simply not synonymous with school safety, and we are fighting to bring the victories of the National Campaign for Police Free Schools to Texas.