The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and Policing-Free Schools Canada sent a joint letter to the British Columbia Minister of Education and Child Care, Minister or Public Safety and Solicitor General, calling for an end all police-in-school programming in the province. 

According to BCCLA policy director Meghan McDermott:

Police presence in schools is counter-productive to maintaining a safe learning environment for children. Institutional unwillingness to address the known harms compounds the serious power imbalance between police and the students and employees they interact with, and presents a risk to everyone in BC’s schools. It’s time to end the use of police-in-school programs in BC public schools without delay.

The two organizations highlighted multiple serious incidents involving the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) and the school board. In one case, a school liaison officer (SLO) pointed a firearm at an unarmed school board employee, then handcuffed them and conducted an illegal search.

In another case, a recent report by the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC) noted an inappropriate incident concerning a VPD officer who delivered a presentation at a Vancouver high school. The officer had exchanged emails with a female student and commenced an intimate relationship with her after her graduation. The subsequent OPCC report revealed that the officer lied about his age and was verbally and emotionally abusive. The disciplinary measure was dismissal. The OPCC report never named the officer responsible leaving the public no way of knowing whether the officer continued to work with young adults. According to the letter, “The school district and independent school association were reportedly unaware of the incident, the investigation into the officer’s conduct, and the substantiated findings.” This raises additional accountability concerns surrounding in-school programming.

BCCLA states that the program reforms and training commitments do not outweigh the greater structural concerns. Aside from individual incidents, the BCCLA highlights longstanding fundamental concerns raised by marginalized communities, namely Indigenous, Black, racialized, disabled, and 2SLGBTQIA+ students. These concerns reinforce BCCLA’s call to end police in-school programming.

In-school police programming in BC consists of an SLO or School Resource Officer who is paired with educators in local school districts. The purpose of the program is to operate under a trauma-informed, preventative model, where officers focus on mentorship, safety presentations, and building trust with students.

BCCLA has urged a moratorium on all police in-school programming in the province’s public schools and prevent their reintroduction “regardless of name, structure, or level of reform.”