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Newly elected Vancouver School Board trustees are grappling with whether to reinstate a program that allowed police officers to work inside schools, as community members argue that the previous board was right to cancel the initiative.

Bringing the school liaison officer program back was a campaign promise of ABC Vancouver, the party that now holds a majority of seats on the board. But a motion on the idea has prompted concern and frustration among many of the same parents and activists who worked to have the SLO program rescinded 18 months ago, when they successfully made the case that it was harmful to Black and Indigenous students.

ABC won five of the board’s nine seats in last month’s municipal election, with party members Victoria Jung and Gurpreet Faridkot becoming school board chair and vice-chair. The motion, tabled by Ms. Faridkot, calls for the school board to create a “revised and reimagined” version of the program. The board’s debate on the motion has been scheduled for Nov. 28, its second regular meeting following the new trustees’ swearing-in earlier this month.

The previous school board removed police officers from schools in April, 2021, after months of research and public consultation. An independent report found VSB students had a range of experiences with the program. While 53 per cent of all the students surveyed said they agreed it had contributed to a sense of safety in schools, only 15 per cent of Black students and 47 per cent of Indigenous students agreed.

The report said students who identified as Black or Indigenous were more likely to reference feelings of fear, anxiety and mistrust in the presence of officers.

According to an article published on the VSB’s website, school liaison officers’ responsibilities included delivering safety and crime prevention lessons, acting as a legal resource and talking informally with students when they had questions about the justice system.

Ms. Faridkot’s motion says the Vancouver Police Department warned this past spring that the city was seeing a marked increase in incidents involving youth, including what the force said was a concerning number of young people with imitation guns, bear spray, brass knuckles and machetes near schools and in the community.

The motion does not say how the revised version of the program would differ from the old one.

At a public delegation board meeting on Monday evening, speakers overwhelmingly opposed the return of the program.

Leona Brown, who is Gitxsan and Nisga’a, said she doesn’t think there is enough violence, or enough data, to support the program being reinstated.

“Many of us in the community had worked very hard to have it removed from the school system, specifically because it causes harm to Indigenous people,” Ms. Brown said.

Another speaker, Stephanie Kallstrom, said some have argued that bringing back the program is the will of the majority. “Black and Indigenous people will never be the majority,” she said.

The public delegations resumed on Tuesday, and were scheduled to continue on Wednesday and Thursday.

The BC Community Alliance, a non-profit organization that works to combat anti-Black racism, said in a statement that reintroducing the program would not only fly in the face of democracy, but would also contradict the VSB’s own school safety policy.

Ms. Jung, the board chair, said in an interview last week that the board has an opportunity to introduce changes to the program that would address the needs and concerns of students and other stakeholders.

“No decisions have been made,” she said.

Jennifer Reddy, a OneCity school board trustee, said completely overriding the work that has already been done with parents, students and other stakeholders is “a big sidestep.”

The Green Party, which has two trustees on the board – Janet Fraser, the previous board chair, and Lois Chan-Pedley – has launched a petition opposing the reintroduction of the program.

A number of school districts across the country, including those in Toronto, Peel, Edmonton and Waterloo, have ended police presence in their schools. In Vancouver schools, a new department committed to safety interventions and resources for students was created in fall 2021.

ABC also pledged to bring back honours courses in Vancouver schools, which were cancelled last year because the school board determined their existence was unfair to some students. Ms. Jung said that’s not the board’s focus right now.

Ms. Reddy said any proposal to restore the courses must take costs into consideration, as well as staffing.

Preventing schools from closing after pandemic-related learning disruptions, supporting staff members with the resources that they need and ensuring kids have access to lunch programs are the real issues that are affecting vulnerable students in the district, she added.

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