Vancouver School Board to decide whether to scrap liaison officer program

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Do police have a place in Vancouver’s schools? That’s the question the Vancouver School Board (VSB) will vote on Monday evening, as it looks at whether or not to continue the School Liaison Officer (SLO) program.

The program was put under review last year, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Critics are concerned about the impact of a police presence in schools on BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students and staff.

“I think that there’s definitely ongoing issues of concerns between police and racialized folks, but not only racialized folks – folks who are trans, non-binary, LGBTQ2S – and I think we have many pieces of data that speak to some of the concerns in this relationship between folks and policing,” OneCity VSB trustee Jennifer Reddy told NEWS 1130 last month.

An independent review conducted by an outside firm, Argyle Communications Inc., found there is a general “lack of understanding” of what the liaison program is, and how it serves the students.

Green Trustee Lois Chan-Pedley says they heard several “deeply emotional and personal” stories through the review.

“There are clearly negative effects of having police in schools, in particular, Black and Indigenous students don’t feel safe when uniformed cops are around. We know that feelings of safety and belonging have big effects on educational outcomes. If you don’t feel safe, you can’t focus on school. It’s as simple as that,” she said.

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But Chan-Pedley says there are benefits to the program, when it comes to crime prevention.

“Especially violent crime … Officers who are part of the SLO program view them very differently compared to officers who are not. And they run clubs and extra-curriculars … They contribute to the relationship building that help defuse certain situations that might be too much for teachers and principals and school counsellors to handle on their own,” she explained.

Other supporters of the program say liaison officers also talk to teens about how to avoid gang life.

Sgt. Steve Addison with the Vancouver Police Department (VPD) says the 15 SLOs in the city play an “important role” in schools.

“They provide a number of services to young people in the schools,” Sgt. Steve Addison said, adding officers often volunteer their time over the weekends to support the students.

“Our school liaison officers provide valuable guidance and mentorship to young people, everything from helping teens fill out college applications to giving them a pep talk when they’ve had a rough day to putting them on the straight and narrow when they’re starting to veer off-course,” he said.

The program has been in place for decades, and Addison says the VPD is “open to evolving.”

“Changing as needed to fit with the times,” he explained. “We’ve been open to suggesting that perhaps we could have school liaison officers who aren’t working in uniform in the schools and are more in a plain-clothes capacity. We do appreciate that for some students, having uniformed police officers in schools can be frightening or intimidating.”

The VPD last month said it respects the VSB’s decision to review the program.

The New Westminster School Board has a final vote Tuesday on abolishing its SLO program, after a 6-1 majority backed the move earlier this month.

With files from Tim James, Tarnjit Parmar, Lisa Steacy, Paul James, and Kathryn Tindale