The Santa Barbara Unified School District board faced a historic vote on October 12 when it decided not to renew the contract for an armed School Resource Deputy (SRD) at San Marcos High School. The significance of this vote cannot be overstated. Districts across the state face the same choice: to continue to fund armed police on school campuses or to reimagine school safety by discontinuing police presence.
Before the board voted, the student-led youth coalition Cops Off Campus S.B. gathered testimonials from students who had direct experience with the deputies, also known as School Resource Officers, or SROs. The clear disparities in testimonies by students of color and white students revealed two different sets of experiences, which appeared to be determined largely by ethnicity and race.
One white student called attention to this fact in public comments on October 12, stating, “As I look at the student testimonies , I see such a disparity between the experiences of students of color and white students like myself.” He noted how, when asked about their experiences with school deputies, students of color report feeling “afraid, violated, and harassed” and experienced “intense anxiety.”