After violent tragedies in schools it can be tempting to suggest that the best way to ensure school safety is to have more officers roaming hallways and lunchrooms, and responding to every discipline matter that comes up. However, having more police officers in schools has not shown to be an effective way to increase school safety. Students and teachers have reported feeling less safe with an increased police presence.
And, when there are more police officers walking school hallways, patrolling cafeterias, or watching classrooms, they are more likely to be used inappropriately to respond to routine discipline matters rather than real security threats.
An increased police presence may be of particular concern to students with disabilities, LGBTQ students, and students of color who are more likely than their peers to have negative contact with police, like arrests and use of force incidents, even though they are not more likely to misbehave.
Police officers should certainly be called into a school to respond to an emergency, but that does not require increasing the regular presence of police in school buildings. For more information about police in schools, check out the Police in Schools guide in this toolkit.