While we digest the latest batch of mass shootings occurring in target-rich venues and continue to read the foolishness of defunding the police, thereby reducing the numbers of sworn cops and equipment they need to combat assailants of any kind anywhere, the nation’s largest teachers’ union has voted almost unanimously (93%) to have school campuses free of school resource officers (SROs) or any law enforcement presence altogether.
The National Education Association (NEA) and roughly 6000 of its 3 million members (one of whom is First Lady Jill Biden), met in Chicago recently to discuss “social, emotional, and physical needs” of students all around the country, dismissing the law enforcement institution from playing a vital role in students achieving those factors and many similarly fulfilling virtues, especially the physical need to feel safe and secure.
The union’s “core principle” topping the list of their utopia is to “Adopt a restorative justice philosophy to create a school climate that rejects the criminalization and policing of students.”
I believe those references are rather implicit and do not bode well—for anyone.
A Rutgers University researcher who studies discipline in schools, Anne Gregory said, “We’re adopting restorative justice as an approach to addressing misbehavior without addressing all of the things that lead to the misbehavior.”
In that context, police officers, particularly school resource officers, are traditionally in the mix to preempt and mitigate problem behaviors among students. Doing away with SROs counters having duly trained personnel to help identify the precursors and do something about them more holistically, enabling education, minus the distractions otherwise impeding students’ untapped abilities.
A fundamental purpose of SROs is to form a rapport with students, get to know them, foster friendships, be the listening ear, weigh in advice toward resolving general dilemmas, and cheer in their corner when a tassel is dangling as they walk the stage.
Especially for the youngest students, it’s all about Officer Friendly ensuring children know he is there for them.
(Photo courtesy of the Howard County Police Department.)
That’s been tradition. But tradition is being tried and tested by radicals lording from educational fiefdoms, with grand plans belying the woke realms.
“The NEA is not interested in our children’s education. This union has become a political mouthpiece to advance a communist ideology of indoctrination,” wrote Lt. Steven Rogers.
In a Fox News piece focusing on the NEA’s thrust to have things…different, there are other derivatives to shake the system. Now, these educators want to instead refer to mothers and fathers as “birthing parents,” expressly “for the purpose of being inclusive to the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Published on Independence Day 2022, the NEA’s Representative Assembly delegates approved “NEA policy to ensure safe, just, and equitable schools.” Safe? Without law enforcement officers to safeguard school premises and all humans within and upon?
Incidentally, Kamala Harris, the one who failed to duly scope out and mitigate the undeniably horrendous southern border crisis, found time to attend the NEA meeting and chime in on its woke agenda, including “racial and social justice” activism. Many meetings which culminated in their newfound policy “involved engaging with national partners, state and local affiliates, racial justice advocates, allies, and community activists.”
The seeming party that hollowly boasts “unity” apparently excluded law enforcement at the table convening “allies.” Like they did with historic statues and monuments, guess they’ll be seeking to knock down all school districts with “…Unified School District” in their name to something more exclusive, despite their inclusivity credo.
One statement Harris offered is this: “[Teachers] go to school to learn how to teach our children to inspire their ambition to create the future generations of leaders, and our teachers are also in training to deal with an active shooter. Our teachers are having to learn how to put a tourniquet on a kid if they have been shot.” Really? Who is teaching teachers how “to deal with an active shooter”? Can’t be cops, since they are openly discounting them as the most viable safeguards they truly are. Military operators come to mind, but highly trained and superbly skilled soldiers who are adept at deleting bad actors would seem to also fall on the teachers’ union’s blacklist.
They are claiming they want to go it alone if an active shooter shows up on campus, without specially-trained cops to do the deed?
Who, exactly, are members of the NEA? What makes them better suited to perform tactical police work when evil shows up and bears its fangs?
I searched for NEA material and a slew of details popped up, namely the following words taken directly from the teachers’ union’s “New Business” list preceded by the words “Rationale/Background.” Here are their descriptive words…
“NEA is a social justice union that is a majority female and trans and gender non-conforming folx who will fight against these attacks on our members, students, families, and communities.”
Nothing in that declaration denotes qualifications to perform law enforcement duties, of any kind.
Posted by the Daily Wire were the following words underscoring the NEA’s wokeness: “The Chicago conference is chock-full of woke agenda items and progressive language involving issues that would seem to have little to do with the proper education of the nation’s children.”
That Daily Wire statement was accompanied by an image reflecting a few students following the NEA president. One student’s sign read “Kids for Safe Schools.”
By teaching (indoctrinating) students that they do not need public safety professionals on school grounds, won’t that potentially condition them to not seek out cops when in the general public? Educators educating wrong lessons is shameful!
Dangers creeping on-campus and lurking in general society are stark realities that do not magically go absent. School safety advocates train all year round, unrelentingly.
(Photo courtesy of the School Safety Advocacy Council.)
Cops are unequivocally needed, despite what certain politicos and policy-setters and decision-makers of all stripes would have us believe.
It’s not just about going it alone, without school security provided by police; there’s more clandestine decision-making going on here…
According to Jessica Marie Baumgartner at Go2Tutors, “the NEA plans to offer ‘culturally competent’ teaching after developing strategies to end gaps in disciplinary actions. This is where some parents grow more concerned because security in schools is often needed to protect hard-working diligent students from disruptive individuals and even gang members.” No one is blind to those realities…unless you want to forfeit safety and security, for purposes of running the entire show your way, likely against what parents want.
We’ve seen these ripples in school districts lately, with parents speaking their minds while school board bodies squirm and squelch freedom of speech about parents’ rights to be heard on things such as Critical Race Theory, etc. With the cats out of the bag, and parents rightfully rebuking what some schools insisted the students be taught (indoctrinated), Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) was caught labeling these moms and dads as “domestic terrorists.”
That’s a disgraceful slashing of otherwise constitutional allowances, no? Since when is government into co-parenting?
Perhaps that is the very purpose of ensuring no law enforcement is around, so that these school boards can lord over educational settings without avowed constitutionalists hearing what is being thrust upon the student demographic and their parents. In other words, this appears to have the face of a certain political party and its radical ideologies running roughshod, again. Still the same anti-police party.
“With less school policing and softer disciplinary actions, that take students’ race or culture into account, students are divided and no longer offered equal treatment which often leads to dissent and destruction of student togetherness,” wrote Baumgartner. Divide and conquer? Togetherness is better.
(Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles School Police Department.)
Most of the podcasts I choose to listen to have adopted a policy to invite elected officials or figureheads of organizations, notwithstanding their political party affiliation, to speak on varying issues with which America is contending. Testimonies direct from sources who may have contentious viewpoints allow for critical thinking and reasoned debate—it is supposed to, anyway.
What I am getting at is these podcasts that lean conservative or centrist-wise —some formerly liberal— invite guests from the liberal side of the scale. Reports are that they downright slam the door in the face of the invitation or put on a skit of acceptance…then cancel at the very last minute.
Why do I insert this? I’d love to hear a fact-based dialogue between NEA and someone who opines differently.
There’s more than the NEA’s three million members wanting this or that policy regarding students, campus safety, and the fundamental purpose of educating young minds. What about the parents of these youngsters? Where do they stand on this elimination of school safety/security issue?
Well, “Tiffany Justice of Moms for Liberty told Fox News Digital that she is now calling the NEA the ‘K-12 Cartel’ because they are holding parents and children hostage to a radical agenda.” A radical agenda creeping on campuses…without cops to fend for vulnerabilities that are ever-present in a hugely divided political climate.
“We believe in American teachers, and we don’t believe that the lack of focus that the union has on children is represented,” Ms. Justice said. She was echoed by another parent and advocate of proper education…
“Normal people don’t use the term chestfeeding or birthing person or any of this stuff,” said Nicole Neily of Parents Defending Education. “I think it just further underscores how completely out of touch the teachers’ unions…are from the concerns of normal parents.”
Ding, ding, ding!
(Photo courtesy of the National Association of School Resource Officers.)
Winning arguments are clanging the bell. “They are arrogant. They are dismissive of the family, the parents. It’s beyond Orwellian. Even in science fiction, I don’t know if you can have such a script of complete destruction of human society,” said Elena Fishbein from No Left Turn in Education.
The anti-police party continues its bouncer-at-the-door mentality, pushing their ideologies at you and pushing you aside if you do not agree with their tenets. And you just might be paying for it all…
Per The Washington Stand, “The NEA spent $25 million of members’ dues on campaign donations in the 2020 election cycle, overwhelmingly to Democrats. The three-million-member teachers union receives most of its dues from public school teachers, who in turn receive their salary from taxpayers.”
“What you have here is an elaborate sort of money-laundering operation that’s giving public dollars to left-wing interest groups,” noted Meg Kilgannon, senior fellow for education at the Family Research Council.
Concerns of normal parents, I surmise, would logically include law enforcement presence to combat malfeasants encroaching on school properties. As well, school resource officers typically parlay a bevy of mentorship ideals and teach kids ethics and integrity among other pillars factoring into the composition of a decent human being.
In essence, the NEA’s vote to end policing in schools is tantamount to teasing a hungry tiger by dangling bloody steak…and expecting a pleasant response. Akin to all the liberal-run jurisdictions which set placemats for criminals to freely forage, innocent citizens (residents, merchants, tourists) ultimately pay the price for piss-poor governance.
It’s no wonder teachers are “quitting” or considering departing the field of educating youngsters. A reporter with WHYY, a PBS production, conducted a Q&A with some teachers for its “Schooled” exposé. Here is one discovery: teachers “talk about being crushed by these two relentless forces: A ballooning school administration from above and out-of-control students from below.”
One teacher in Philadelphia made clear that “everything has felt very dire for the whole [school] year.” And the NEA wants teachers to do it all by themselves, while expecting lessons to gain traction in a seemingly out-of-control environment? If nothing else, these teachers receive a swift hardcore lesson on what cops deal with daily.
The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) site recently reposted a nugget offered by the Federal Commission on School Safety in 2018: “…the school personnel best positioned to respond to acts of violence are those with specialized training such as school resource officers, who are typically sworn law enforcement officers, and school safety officers, who are typically unsworn school security staff.”
(Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles School Police Department.)
Given the period between 2018 and 2022, and the acknowledgment of an increasingly violent society, we are reminded that never is there a good time or reason to diminish our country’s public safety professionals.
The entire notion of police-less schools is utterly foolish, and nothing less than gambling with students’ lives. Given the prior paragraph, include the lives of teachers, too.
In effect, a body of activists classed as educators are teaching kids that cops are bad…and that’s not good.