New Westminster School Board votes to end police liaison program

NEW WESTMINSTER (NEWS 1130) — The New Westminster School Board has voted to discontinue the school liaison officer program in the district, effective immediately.

This comes just a day after the school board in Vancouver voted to halt it’s liaison program at the end of June.

Vancouver’s program was put under review last year in the wake of the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, with concerns raised over how the presence of police officers in schools can negatively impact BIPOC and LGBTQ+ students.

The New Westminster School Board has voted to end the school-liaison officer program, effective immediately. It comes a day after a similar vote in Vancouver. We have the details @NEWS1130

— Jonathan Szekeres (@jonszekeres) April 28, 2021

During the meeting, a number of residents, concerned parents and students in the area expressed why they believe the program should or shouldn’t be scrapped.

Andrea Vazquez said it is simply a “systemic issue.”

“There’s no school board, or city or town or rural area that is exempt from systemic issues. What we need to do a center those who are most negatively impacted, which are Black, Indigenous, racialized among the intersectional identity markers of queer, trans, disabled and neurodivergent folks …This is a systemic issue and must be taken upon with the removal of the Child and Youth liaison officer program.”

And Trudi Goels, a step-parent to a student at New Westminster secondary school, agrees. She said any program that is harmful to a demographic of students should be assessed.

“How much harm do we want students to be able to endure because some feel like it’s okay? So who’s whose needs are being met here and who’s aren’t? By releasing this program and moving on from it gives us an opportunity to find programs that actually serve all of our students.”

Related Article: Vancouver School Board votes to end liaison officer program

However, the board also heard from a female Grade 11 student in New Westminster, who spoke of the help the liaison officer has provided recently.

“There was a really big problem with girls’ nudes getting sent around, and the liaison officer did step in, and intervened, and got the boy who sent the girls nudes around in trouble,” she says. “So, I just think it’s important that we have some connection, so that people who feel unsafe in that aspect have somewhere to go, and someone to report it too.”

However, Board Chair Gurveen Dhaliwal was quick to point out that crimes will still be reported to police.

“In the case of these students, they brought to a light an issue that obviously needs to be addressed, there are no questions there, but what the administration and teams working with these young women are hearing is, that the problem runs deeper that can be addressed by an officer talking about consent,” she says. “We’re looking at toxic masculinity, sexist patterns that are deeply embedded in our society, and issues that are a lot of broader than what’s happening at a single school.”

She says instead of looking at how we ‘can or cannot police the actions’, the school board is taking an approach of working with community advocates and experts, to address attitudes and patterns that lead to assaults in the first place.

“It’s so critical that our students feel safe in a school and that it’s something near and dear and we’ll make sure that we’re working to protect our students,” she adds.

A letter sent from the board chair to the Chief of Police in New Westminster reads, “I want to be clear that this is not a reflection of the New Westminster Police as an organization or of any of the dedicated people who we know work there.. Again, while this marks the end of a program, it is not the end of a relationship. We look forward to working with you and your team to determine what that will look like.”