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
Cc: State Superintendent Thurmond Dear Governor, Where will you be next Wednesday when the whole state watches Oakland’s school board vote on whether to become the first urban district in the country to disband its internal school police force? Up and down the state–from Stockton to LA, from Moreno Valley to Salinas–our Black and Brown youth, parents and communities are pushing their own school districts to similar votes over this next two weeks. We will be watching Oakland’s school board vote. And we will be watching you. This moment is a test of your leadership and of the substance of your
