Letters to the Editor: LAUSD families want school police on campus, no matter what some activists say

To the editor: The return of school police to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s most troubled campuses is needed. (“LAUSD police deployment to 20 schools collapses after one day amid opposition, confusion,” May 17)

While the presence of school police on campus is debated by activists and school board members, one thing is certain: For many parents, the presence of police on campus shows a deterrence to crime, and it’s a sentiment that hasn’t changed in the last 30 years. In fact, a 1993 article in the L.A. Times noted that parents “found comfort in the sight of a uniformed officer.”

As an LAUSD teacher’s assistant in the 1990s working at an elementary school in a community afflicted by gang violence and drugs, I remember the important role of school police in ensuring safe campuses and passages. Sadly, many neighborhoods still face these challenges, which is why Latino immigrant families have called on LAUSD officials to restore school police funding and return officers to campuses.

Latino families, whose children comprise 74% of the LAUSD student population, won’t risk sending their kids to schools they perceive to be unsafe. LAUSD must take heed.

Evelyn G. Aleman, Reseda

The writer is founder of the group Our Voice, a Latino parents group.

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To the editor: Why does it not surprise me that LAUSD’s attempt at increasing student safety on targeted secondary schools by deploying officers to those campuses was one big cluster?

Having recently retired from LAUSD after 34 years as a teacher and administrator, I found your article to be an all-too-familiar description of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.

There is no doubt that the district needs to address the increase in crime on certain campuses, and school police should play a vital role in this. But the issue is far more complex and will take more than the deployment of officers to solve.

Tom Iannucci, Los Angeles