Petition Against Student Incarceration and Criminalization in CCSD
Athens CCSD Superintendent, Board Members, ACC Mayor & Commission
The mother of a 17-year-old Cedar High School student who was recently pepper sprayed, arrested and jailed summed up her experience this way, “We send our children to school to be safe, not to be Maced." Click HERE to read the full story.
This petition urges the CCSD to speedily eliminate punitive policies that cause students to enter the criminal justice system. Further we urge these policies be replaced with more restorative practices designed to dismantle the school to prison pipeline.
The presence of school resource officers (SROs) is not the problem, per se. SROs can play an important role in keeping our children safe. The key is that officers must do just that: protect and not criminalize our children. CCSD Administration must keep our children safe by eliminating systemic and punitive discipline policies along with insufficiently trained and biased staff.
We demand that CCSD Board members and policy makers seek alternatives to punitive practices such as creating safety teams or hiring trained staff that know how to de-escalate conflict, including restorative practices coordinators, counselors, and mental health workers. Aggression and violence against students, including pepper spray, physical restraints, and incarceration should be a last resort.
For the past two years, Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement’s End School to Prison Pipeline advocates have worked to bring awareness and facilitate dialogue in our community. Schools are supposed to be places that foster understanding and support—not intimidation and threat of arrest—to help students learn and grow. We can’t cultivate future leaders nor help students meet their true potential by criminalizing student behavior and incarcerating them.
We urge you to read and support AADM’s demands for rethinking school safety. Will you help us? Mrs. Jackson and many other mom need your support.
Sponsored by
To:
Athens CCSD Superintendent, Board Members, ACC Mayor & Commission
From:
[Your Name]
Dear CCSD Superintendent Means, CCSD Board Members, ACC Mayor & Commission
The mother of a 17-year-old Cedar High School student who was recently pepper sprayed, arrested and jailed summed up her experience this way, “We send our children to school to be safe, not to be Maced."
This petition urges the CCSD to speedily eliminate punitive policies that cause students to enter the criminal justice system. Further, we urge these policies be replaced with more restorative practices designed to dismantle the school to prison pipeline.
The presence of school resource officers (SROs) is not the problem, per se. SROs can play an important role in keeping our children safe. The key is that officers must do just that: protect and not criminalize our children. CCSD Administration must keep our children safe by eliminating systemic and punitive discipline policies along with insufficiently trained and biased staff.
We demand that CCSD Board members and policy makers seek alternatives to punitive practices such as creating safety teams or hiring trained staff that know how to de-escalate conflict, including restorative practices coordinators, counselors, and mental health workers. Aggression and violence against students, including pepper spray, physical restraints, and incarceration should be a last resort.
For the past two years, Athens Anti-Discrimination Movement’s End School to Prison Pipeline advocates have worked to bring awareness and facilitate dialogue in our community. Schools are supposed to be places that foster understanding and support—not intimidation and threat of arrest—to help students learn and grow. We can’t cultivate future leaders nor help students meet their true potential by criminalizing student behavior and incarcerating them.
We urge you to read and support AADM’s demands for rethinking school safety. Will you help us?
AADM and its allies urge the following from the City of Athens:
1. Narrow School Resource Officer (SRO) scope of responsibility to only intervene in potentially life-threatening situations.
1a. Use funding currently allocated for SROs within the Athens Police Department to hire safety teams or staff that know how to de-escalate conflict, including restorative practices coordinators, counselors, and mental health workers.
2. Prohibit SROs from switching between administrators and law enforcement officers.
3. End punitive measures and increase restorative justice practices. This includes increasing the presence of health workers, restorative practices coordinators, counseling staff and implementing de-escalation training.
3a. Hire health and safety staff focused on alternative measures for conflict resolution.
3b. Increase the number of support staff in schools, including restorative practices coordinators who can help empower students to lead these practices throughout their schools.
3c. Mental health providers should be available as a resource for teachers as well as students.
3d. Support staff must represent and reflect the demographics of the student body.
3e. Ensure newly-hired school support staff undergo restorative justice training that reflects the CCSD Code of Conduct.
4. Empower parents to intervene on their children’s behalf when they are the subject of police investigation.
5.Establish a Community SRO Review Board
5a. Implement a School Safety Police Review Board made up of community members, intervention workers, behavior interventionists, and/or restorative practices coordinators.
5b. This team would be in charge of creating a unique safety plan based on restorative justice that meets the school’s individual needs. These plans should include a peer mediator component.
Sincerely Yours,
AADM Board, Concerned Parents, and Community Allies