LAUSD Teacher Says Defunding School Police Puts Students and Teachers at Risk

As a longtime educator, I’m concerned about numerous disturbing policies championed by the National Education Association (NEA) and United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA). Especially troubling is the push to dismantle school safety.

For starters, NEA and UTLA have been active in efforts to defund the police.

An officer with the Los Angeles School Police Department told me only one officer patrols five schools. Why is this troubling? Because there were three known stabbings, a mass shooting threat, guns exposed at a middle school, a semi-automatic weapon at an elementary school, a gun fired in a high school, and a shooting fatality last school year.

The 2024 school year concluded with a stabbing after South El Monte High’s graduation ceremony.

Other effects: Teachers have been assaulted, and the Los Angeles Times reports there have been 171 cases of Los Angeles Unified School District burglary and vandalism from August through November 2024.

The environment is not safe for students or teachers. Teachers are concerned, parents are afraid, and students worried about lax security have fears of their own, as told by one student at George Washington Prep, whose friend was slain.

But after I showed concern when an UTLA union leader urged members to defund the police, he labelled my comments racist.

Beyond orchestrating teachers, in June 2020, at an LAUSD board meeting, students were permitted to call in. But any objective listener could decipher that these students had been systematically coached. Speeches sounded rote and weaponized to the beat that the School Police had abused all, who were black and brown.

Not so. I served 15-plus years in more than 70 schools and saw innumerable contacts between officers and students of various ethnic backgrounds, and not once did I ever see abuse by an officer. On the contrary, the students appeared on good terms with officers. When someone stole money from my purse, I was thankful an officer helped me.

I am aware racial abuse happens. In fact, I was an advocate for justice in the Mitrice Richardson case involving the Sheriff’s Department.

But in my experience, NEA and UTLA are playing politics. They’re undercutting good officers, and leaving children and educators vulnerable to attacks.

The second complaint against NEA and UTLA is their having invited Black Lives Matter onto our campuses. BLM is an enthusiastic partner of the unions in having school police defunded.

BLM-Los Angeles and a partner organization, Students Deserve, pushed hard to defund police and were quite pleased with themselves upon succeeding. BLM, with UTLA’s help, recruited students uncomfortable around school officers and together helped defund $25 million in safety-officer funds to be used on “academic counselors, climate advocates, and psychiatric social workers.”

In 2024, four years after removing officers, stopping all random searches, and defunding the one entity that can help keep students safe, Superintendent Alberto Carvalho tried to restore officers to some violent schools. Union-activist outrage followed, and within a day, he withdrew the order.

The unions always overdo it, but this time the stark numbers expose their cruel folly. The district itself reported shortly thereafter that its own data shows a 45% spike from 2017-18 to 2022-23 in incidents involving: suicide risk, fighting/physical aggression, threats, illegal/controlled substances and weapons. In fact, weapons incidents rose from 994 to 1,197 in 2022-23.

I have emailed and spoken to the school board, since 2021, requesting LASPD and security be returned to campuses. Parents are speaking out, too, frequently and consistently. LASPD Association President Gil Gamez has voiced his professional opinion, multiple times, saying removing officers from high schools exacerbates risk and slows response times. UTLA, and its allies, however, continue to prioritize politics over safety.

One result of their political activism: Fewer LAUSD Students feel safe at school. 

This includes the very demographic the defunding was designated to help. One black teen at Verdugo Hills High was stabbed in December, while another, outside Ernest Lawrence Middle, was sadly, allegedly, assaulted by a parent this January in Chatsworth.

For the 2024-2025 school year, LAUSD ordered all online educators to return to physical campuses, but campuses lack safety. I haven’t gone back. I’m still seeking religious accommodation to remain remote.

School police are a deterrent to violence and crime. That’s why district administrators have security guards and metal detectors. Teachers’ union leadership has security, too.

Educators see school safety as a primary concern around the country. I’m one of them. Students, educators, parents, volunteers, we all deserve to feel safe, just as both union and district proselytized during the COVID period.