2020 has been a watershed year for DSC CA. Our last three years of diligent movement building has resulted in a transformative approach to removing police from schools all around the state. Coupled with a statewide identity and cohesive theory of change, we met the uprisings generated by the dehumanizing murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police with incredible victories. Our approach has been to build Black-Brown solidarity statewide around the need to center Black-led organizing and organizations. Specifically, DSC CA worked to support the Black Organizing Project’s decade-long Bettering Our School System (BOSS) Campaign, which set the goal of
Cc: Governor Newsom Dear Superintendent Thurmond, We appreciate your reaching out to Black Organizing Project to discuss strategies for moving toward police-free schools. Given your disappointing public remarks last Wednesday, we are encouraged by your willingness to reflect and to listen to the leadership from our communities on this issue. Please resist the immense pressure in this moment for cookie-cutter solutions and politics as usual. The most dangerous of these involve the reshuffling and repackaging of school police, such as higher “standards” for school police hiring and training, banning school police from using traumatizing or violent interventions (pepper spray, restraints, mental
