By Carolyn Jones, Ed Source, July 24, 2020
Faced with a soaring budget deficit and a growing fear of school shootings, Fontana Unified took a drastic step in the early 2010s: First, the board laid off the district’s entire staff of 69 counselors. And then it bought its police department 14 automatic rifles.
The San Bernardino County district was not unusual. In the wake of the Columbine school shooting, 9/11 and the 2008 recession, school districts throughout California were making similar choices to cut mental health services in favor of more police, according to a 2019 report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Now, as the Black Lives Matter movement gathers momentum, some districts are moving in the opposite direction: cutting back on police spending and hiring more counselors. But social justice advocates say that eliminating police should only be a first step, and districts need to take broad action to reduce institutional racism that they say permeates most aspects of the education system.
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