It would be good to report that the Greater Victoria School Board at least expressed some concern Monday after hearing a persuasive and alarming case as to how profoundly wrong its decision to scrap the school police liaison officer program is.
But it didn’t happen that way.
Mia Golden, a veteran youth counsellor who has spent years working on the Mobile Youth Services Team, briefed them in passionate detail about the damage that decision is doing and how badly the program is needed.
At one point, she said: “My hope is, with so much at stake, board members will reach out with questions…”
Board chair Nicole Duncan cut her off exactly at the five-minute mark, as per the rules. Then the trustees asked a handful of innocuous questions that completely bypassed the points she made. Then it was on to other business.
It was not hostile or rude. They thanked her for her service. But it could only be summed up as polite indifference to the essentials of the case she made.
Golden joined the long, growing list of people and groups who are objecting to the decision to ban police from district schools on the stated grounds that some students from racial or other minority groups “don’t feel safe” when police are on hand.
She appears to have made as much an impression as everyone else has so far. Which is — none at all.
She works with a city police officer daily on a team tasked with preventing child exploitation. They have always been busy but are now “overwhelmed.”
Golden acknowledged that some people have had unpleasant or traumatic experiences with police.
But she stressed that kids now, like never before, “face relentless exposure to threats.”
“And now we have adults sending a very loud and clear indoctrinating message … that the people you called if you ever needed help … are now villains.
“I find this so upsetting.
“Do we want our children to lose yet another foothold under their already shaky ground?
“The message is so unbearably damaging to our children.”
She talked about children going through things that could have been prevented, and living in fear.
“And I’m tired of white people indoctrinating racialized children into thinking they aren’t safe from police here in Victoria.”
On the racial issue that underlies the SPLO decision, Golden, who is Black, said racialized people are vulnerable and there are many well-meaning people “out there fighting for us.”
“But what that does is maintain the status-quo messaging that white people know better, and keeps those of us who are racialized in the victim, or ‘less than’ role.”
It was the second time in a week the racial angle to the board’s decision has been scrutinized by racialized people who find it extremely suspect.
Sandee Mitchell wrote a compelling commentary in Friday’s Times Colonist on behalf of a group of Indigenous women who objected to the shutdown of the SPLO and asked that the program be restored.
“Many schools have built relationships with [police] over the years. They visit our schools and drum with our children … We do not have rose-coloured glasses with any group, but when it comes to building collaborative relationships, we know it takes getting to know one another and respectfully addressing concerns,” she wrote.
Although the board consulted widely before committing to the stance, Golden told the board Monday that no one reached out to her team to ask what is actually happening.
Gang members are routinely present around schools now. “They do product drop-offs, pickups … they recruit and threaten.”
Golden said there is “a significant uptick in children carrying knives and pepper spray for protection. Just protection.”
Liaison officers in schools would not end that overnight. But becoming familiar with an officer in a low-stress environment could give a child a lifeline when they find themselves in a frightening, threatening situation and feel they have nowhere to turn.
The SPLO program could have been adjusted to make it even more sensitive than it already is. But instead, the board ditched it and barred all cops from schools except in emergency situations.
Golden said Tuesday the board’s position “makes absolutely no sense.”
Instead of recognizing they need to rethink it, they’ve dug their heels in to save face.”
Children’s safety is the board’s prime mandate, but that priority has fallen off the table.
