Students across York Region will once again see uniformed officers at school, however police and board officials say they will only be stopping by for the occasional safety presentation.
Both the Catholic and public school boards in York Region suspended two programs that placed officers in schools on a more fulltime basis in 2021 amid concerns from community advocates.
On Thursday morning, York Regional Police (YRP) unveiled a newly developed School-Police Protocol, which they said aims to “provide support and meaningful engagement for students at both the elementary and secondary levels” and “follows a thoughtful, collaborative process.”
“Our strong partnership with the school boards has endured for decades and is a critical element to community safety, and this has allowed us to finalize the protocol to benefit students across all of York Region,” YRP’s Police Chief Jim McSween said during a news conference in Whitchurch-Stouffville.
He went on to say that the updated protocol, developed over about five years, “outlines the ongoing commitment and roles and responsibilities around the safety of youth within our region,” and was created through a “trauma-informed “and “anti-oppressive human rights” approach.
“(It) is based on a mandated provincial template that provides for a safe, inclusive, equitable school environment that supports learning and behavioural and behaviour development, including respect, responsibility and civility, and for YRP that includes age-appropriate safety information,” McSween said.
He noted that it is not a return to the controversial school resource officer and youth education officer programs, which were both paused four-and-a-half years ago.
York Region District School Board Director Bill Cober said the new protocol “speaks to the collaboration and commitment our organizations have made, not only to each other, but to our students, families and communities.”
“(It) outlines each organization’s responsibility in education and community safety,” he said, adding that the partnership with other school boards and local police help them “ensure that the safety and well-being of our students, family, staff and our communities are addressed with confidence and clarity.”
John De Faveri, York Catholic District School Board’s director of education, said the new protocol “strengthens our commitment to creating a safe and welcoming school environment” and is an “important step towards creating safe and welcoming schools for all of our children in York Region, regardless of what school board they happen to attend.”
“Through joint training, we will provide a consistent approach to police involvement in schools that reflects the commitment to community safety and equity that our three organizations describe in the new joint police protocol,” he added.
De Faveri also pointed to the process that must be followed by police and school staff when an investigation is needed inside a school, including what he called a “triage approach” to hate or bias-motivated incidences.
“It prescribes a list of alleged incidents that require a school to notify the police. It talks about information on investigations involving students with exceptionalities and an acknowledgement that mitigating factors should be considered, and a very explicit list of what those mitigating factors are,” he said.
“Moving forward as a school board at York Catholic, we will begin consultations with our community groups on allowing police officers to provide students with fact-based and age-appropriate presentations on safety topics.”
York Regional Police and school board representatives officially signed the new School-Police Protocol on Thursday morning.
Police officers to do three presentations at each school
In terms of what the in-school presentations will entail, McSween explained that youth engagement officers would be speaking with students at each school on three occasions to discuss road and traffic safety as well as pathways to a career in policing.
“YRP will be invited to deliver one of the standardized presentations as guests of the school and at the discretion of the school administration and administrators, parents will be provided two weeks notice and advised of the presentation topic,” he said.
“As the school year continues, we will continue to work with our partners at the school boards on evaluating this program to ensure we are meeting the needs of students, families and the community.”
He also said that parents and guardians can choose to have their children not attend the presentations, adding that anyone concerned about the new protocol is also welcome to contact police.
“I do hear from members of the community that are still concerned, and all I can say is, that’s why we continue to monitor programs, reassess those programs. Are they meeting the objectives for the boards and for the police, in collaboration with all of us and the communities, and if so, you know, I’m asking for some trust here that we are going to do things differently,” McSween said.
“And you know, as we continue to deliver these programs, I’m confident that trust will be reestablished where it’s broken and where it still exists.”
McSween said that the topics of discussion may be modified down the line to include community safety issues in the York Region, like gun violence, carjackings, and robberies.
“I would expect that there will be opportunities in the future for changes to that and to be added, or, you know, taken away, dependent on what’s going on in our communities,” he said.
“What is good about these programs right now is that it’s addressing some of the critical issues that are also happening out on our roads in relation to impaired and all of the issues I talked about with road safety. (It) is still a critical concern to the community as well so that’s why we’ve started there.”