Education Week - February 8, 2017 - 14

n POLICING AMERICA'S SCHOOLS:
An Education Week Analysis

Atlanta Sets Out
To Improve Climate
and that their presence too often leads schools to
treat routine student misbehavior in a criminal
manner.
While Atlanta's plans have already brought big
changes to how policing looks in the school system,
they don't adhere to what some national civil rights
groups have called for, which is much tighter restrictions on officers' interactions with students or
removing them from schools all together. Mediating
conflicts and mentoring students are better left to
school counselors and other school staff without arresting authority, those groups argue.
The district's school-climate strategy focuses on
teaching students social-emotional skills such as tactics for controlling their behavior and emotions and
forming strong relationships with peers. District leaders have also embraced the use of conflict resolution
techniques and restorative practices to drive down the numbers
of students who get suspended.
There's a court-diversion program
that uses community outreach and
mentoring to address some student
behavior issues. And leaders plan
to closely track data to monitor
whether school climate is actually
getting better.
Anchoring that strategy is a
five-year, $7.5 million grant from
the National Institute of Justice
that pairs the district with researchers from WestEd and Georgia State University to design and
evaluate a comprehensive school
safety plan. Leaders of that work
hope Atlanta can become a model
for other districts.

Serious Safety Issues
It's a mammoth challenge. School climate initiatives revolve around trust between students, staff,
parents, and teachers, and the confidence that
Atlanta had in its city schools had frayed in recent years after a test-cheating scandal that led to
criminal convictions for 11 teachers.
And it's not a small thing to ask Atlanta's student
population-which is 76 percent black-to trust
police officers in their schools when there's a pervasive distrust of law enforcement in many AfricanAmerican communities. That concern has been exacerbated in the wake of multiple high-profile police
shootings of unarmed African-Americans in recent
years, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said.
The Atlanta district had 29 school-related arrests
and 31 referrals to law enforcement in 2013-14, the
most recent federal civil rights data show. An Education Week Research Center analysis of that data
shows that all of the arrested students were AfricanAmerican while most of those referred to police were
also black. No white students were arrested or referred to police.
When Carstarphen came to the district in July
2014, she identified improving its culture-including its policing strategy-as a major priority.
The safety issues the district faced were "like
nothing I've ever seen," she said.
In 2013, for example, a Grady High student
accidentally shot herself in the thigh after illegally
carrying a gun on campus. In 2014, a driver used
pepper spray to break up a fight between a group
of high school students on a school bus. And in
2015, a student was critically injured and a passerby was wounded in a shooting near Grady High
School's stadium after a football game. The researchers for WestEd outlined additional concerns.
The district's graduation rate was 71.1 percent,
compared to 79 percent statewide in 2016, state

...I wanted [students] leaving
their school experience
respecting an officer of the
law, but not fearing them... "
MERIA CARSTARPHEN
Superintendent, Atlanta Public Schools

data show. In the first three months of the 2014-15
school year, there were nearly 2,400 suspensions,
both in-school and out-of-school, district data show,
"and half were due to non-violent behavioral issues, such as disruptive behavior and student incivility," the researchers wrote in the grant application for the National Institute of Justice.
A 2012 audit found that 34 percent of students
"indicated that classroom behaviors prevented
their teachers from teaching so they could learn,"
the application said. And, in 2014, more than 30
percent of Atlanta's schools ranked as in need of
improvement on Georgia's School Climate assessment. That assessment, compiled by the state department of education, factors in student survey
responses, discipline data, and attendance data
into its ratings. Schools that score a 1 or 2 on the
five-point scale are considered below satisfactory
levels, a designation given to about 15 percent of
rated schools statewide that year.
Atlanta's district leaders had considered standing up their own police force before, not unusual for
larger districts, including many that surround the
city. Carstarphen supported that plan and decided
it should be integrated into the district's bigger
push for improving school climate.
Every interaction a student has before they reach

14 | EDUCATION WEEK | February 8, 2017 | www.edweek.org

Photos by Melissa Golden/Redux for Education Week

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

the classroom-with bus drivers, with staff who
greet them at the entrance to the school, with officers monitoring their campuses-can either "turn
that kid up and make them frustrated and angry,
or take the temperature down," Carstarphen said.
"I wanted to start it right," she said. "I wanted it
to be built in a model that was about supporting,
counseling, mentoring, helping, teaching, but also
policing. ...I wanted [students] leaving their school
experience respecting an officer of the law but not
fearing them in an unhealthy way where they're
the enemy and they're here to get me."

Unique Assignment
Launching an in-house police department didn't
come without blowback. It faced criticism from Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who said that he feared
removing city officers from the schools would "make
the children of the Atlanta school system far less
safe," the Atlanta-Journal Constitution reported. For
the city, it meant the end of a $5.6 million annual
contract to place its police in district schools.
Atlanta school officials say their officers are
equipped to keep schools safe. The district requires
three years of law enforcement experience from
prospective school resource officers, and many of
those it has hired have experience working in school
districts and in local police departments around
the state. Some even previously worked in Atlanta
schools or for other school-based agencies.
Ronald Applin, the district's police chief, is a former captain in the Fulton County Sheriff's Department. He said principals now have some say in
which officers are placed in their schools, and that
school resource officers will receive ongoing training
on issues like how to interact with students and the

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP:
School resource officer
Derrick Hammond walks
through the cafeteria
greeting students during
lunch at Grady High
School in Atlanta.
Grady High Senior
Jordi Perulero, left,
uses a phone to show
Hammond proof that he
works as a cook in one
of the officer's favorite
restaurants.
School resource officer
Willette Barr talks with
senior Autumn Koins
during lunch at Grady
High. Both Barr and
Hammond previously
worked as county
sheriff's deputies
before being hired by
the Atlanta district.

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Education Week - February 8, 2017

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