Last week, on Friday, April 19th, the Board of Education for School District 61 (SD61) released a statement in which they stood by their decision to cancel the school police liaison officer (SPLO) program.
The board says that the decision they came to in May 2023 was the result of a two and a half year process in which they engaged with all members of the learning community and the public.
They say they spoke with trustees, police liaison officers, GVTA representatives, union representatives, principals and vice principals, students from each secondary school, Songhees, Esquimalt and Metis Nation representatives, an Urban Indigenous representative, and a Resilience BC representative as part of this process.
“The Board of Education’s decision reflects the evolving needs of students and the importance of safeguarding the rights’ of students,” said SD61 regarding their decision to cancel the SPLO program.
“Out of respect for the rights of students the Board of Education must ensure we have appropriate levels of clarity and oversight over the delivery of services to students while they are in our care.”
The board says that the decision was made in order to make sure that police officers weren’t being shoehorned into the role of providing student services that they aren’t trained to give.
Following the decision to cancel the program, the board says they met with all involved police departments to discuss plans for student safety should an issue arise.
“We continue to rely on policing services to communicate potential safety concerns which may have an impact on our schools,” said the board.
“We want to re-emphasize that our existing protocols for lockdowns (hold and secure), critical incidents, and violent threat risk assessments continue to be in effect.”
School staff will still monitor students and if any safety concern comes up, they will call police in to aid in dealing with the situation when necessary, according to SD61.
The decision to cancel the SPLO program has come back into the spotlight since VicPD arrested a man who was allegedly recruiting secondary school students into a gang through selling them vape products.
Since that arrest, many parents along with both Victoria and Saanich’s councils have written to SD61 to request the program be reinstated.
VicPD’s response to SD61’s statement
Following the statement released by SD61, VicPD Chief Del Manak has released a statement of his own.
Manak says that he is disappointed in the SD61 decision to not comply with the requests to bring the program back.
He added that he believes that SD61 is intentionally underplaying the role that police liaisons once held in the school systems.
“The documents speak to the need for trained, certified and regulated adults to deliver a program with clearly defined goals and activities, with Board oversight,” said Manak.
“I have been clear that I am open to a revised model for the SPLO program, but I must ask whether the District does not recognize the provincial training and certification of the Justice Institute of BC, the additional training that is provided to officers throughout their careers, the levels of civilian oversight that currently exist, the careful selection process for our SPLOs, or that our officers have, at their heart, the best interests of students in mind during every school interaction.”
His argument is that children should have access to trusted adults who include mental health workers, councillors and social workers, but those people cannot fill the role of the police officers who once worked in the schools.
Manak also noted that by trying to get officers back in schools, he is not vying for additional funding for the VicPD.
He says his concern lies in the safety of students.
“Since the decision to remove School Police Liaison Officers in May 2023, the safety and wellbeing of students has become an area of significant concern in SD61 schools,” Manak explained.
Manak says he wants to form a sub-committee to address the issue which was a massive part of why the program was cancelled in the first place—many students don’t feel safe around police officers.
“If a program designed to protect children has immense benefits, but is imperfect, instead of removing it altogether let us work to address those concerns head-on and improve it with an eye to building trust and mutual understanding,” he said.
Despite this intent by Manak and VicPD, the two and a half year engagement process which SD61 conducted has proven to the board that it is for the students’ benefit to not have police officers in the schools on a regular basis, but rather just when an incident arises.
The original decision to cancel the SPLO program
The initial decision to remove SPLO from schools came after several students, staff and administration shared concerns that having police officers in schools made certain marginalized groups feel uncomfortable and unsafe, according to their report on the matter.
“Police are being asked to fill in gaps in student support and to take on roles that should be filled by individuals with specialized expertise, such as youth and family counsellors and social workers,” Nicole Duncan, Education Chair for SD61, said at the time the program was cut in May 2023.
“Further funding is required for this specialized support, and the Board has committed to advocating for this funding from the provincial government.”
Following the decision to cut the program, the Support Network for Indigenous Women and Women of Color (SNIWWOC) commended the decision based on the following evidence based findings:
- Many BIPOC students graduate highschool with first and second hand trauma experiences at the hands of police
- The 2021 Greater Victoria Local Immigration Partnership Network Survey revealed that 30% of BIPOC Victorians have experienced racism from local police
- A police officer isn’t bound by the same physical contact and restraint policies that other school staff are
- VicPD reports from 2016 to 2021 show them disproportionately policing BIPOC youth — Around 19% of people VicPD labeled as “youth suspects” were Indigenous when they comprise only 5% of Victoria’s population
- A disproportionate amount of incident reports have stemmed from Esquimalt High School, a school with a largely BIPOC student body
- Canada’s House of Commons determined that systemic racism is present in all police organizations and work must be put in across the country to make positive changes in this regard
The decision to cut the program was also based on a BC Human Rights Commissioner recommendation.
Former member of the Oak Bay Police Board and former MLA for the Oak Bay-Gordon Head electoral district, Andrew Weaver, is critical of these statistics and has accused SD61 of guiding their decision based on ideology rather than statistics.
Weaver wrote a blog entry in February 2024 in which he attempted to debunk the information that SD61 used to inform their decision making process.
Included in this blog post are highlights of a survey conducted by SD61 which say that 45% of students say they’ve had positive interactions with SPLOs, 40% say they have not interacted with them and 5% say they have had negative reactions.
However, when asked if they were comfortable around the officers, 16% said they were not and 15% said they would like to see the SPLO program shut down.
When considering these statistics, it is important to note that SD61’s student body is predominantly Caucasian.
Following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020 at the hands of police, BIPOC student’s trust in police has plummeted.
This is something proven in the Canadian House of Commons report on Systematic Racism In Policing In Canada.
 released a statement in which they stood by their decision to cancel the school police liaison officer (SPLO) program. ){kind=link}