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Op-ed: AV teacher demands removal of police from schools

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A protestor holds up a sign at a “Cancel the Contract” rally outside the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station on May 8, 2021. [Contributed]
By Barron Gardner
Teacher, AVUHS District

George Floyd’s murder, and the ensuing uprisings across the country, accelerated youth activism in the Antelope Valley. Young people around the valley organized to demand answers in the questionable death of Robert Fuller, and justice for the deaths of Michael Thomas and Terron Boone at the hands of Lancaster Sheriffs. Former AVUHSD students demanded the removal of police from our schools, as we have seen across the country. One year later, we’re still fighting to cancel the contract the school district has with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), and replace it with meaningful support and services for our students.

There is no evidence that the presence of police on school campuses benefits students, nor is there any indication that there is any inherent benefit for high-need students in particular. In the Antelope Valley Union High School District, 18,314 students fall into one of the high-needs categories Local Control Funding Formula identifies (foster youth, low socioeconomic status, or English learners). Local Control Accountability Plans submitted by AVUHSD from 2016 to 2021 show that the district has spent nearly $9 million dollars on a contract with the Sheriff’s Department to provide a deputy on each school campus. The law requires that these funds be used to address the needs of high-needs students by providing targeted support, services and programming specifically designed for their benefit. The LASD contract does not fit this criteria.

The presence of law enforcement on campus is triggering to many of our students, especially given the graphic violence they see on the part of police on social media and that some have seen in their private lives. I’ve had students tell me personal stories through tears about how they and their families have been treated by police in the community. There are stories of police presence triggering and escalating special education students on our campuses, with one being detained outside while his mother waited on campus for 90 minutes before receiving an update on his well-being. One young lady was obviously distraught due to a case of alleged abuse by a teacher and ended up in handcuffs.

What I am proposing is not just the end of the contract with LASD, but a paradigm shift away from policing and reactive policies that target our most vulnerable students. Our students need mental health support, counseling and conflict resolution skills. How can we be prepared to arrest these kids if we have not provided them with the necessary social and emotional support? With the $1.7 million annually that we spend on school policing, we can begin this shift and redirect those dollars to  programs that positively affect the development of our students at high risk for arrest, as is being done in Oakland. We have an officer for each campus, but why can’t we replace them with “climate coaches” to mentor students and resolve conflicts, as we see in Los Angeles?

In this time of renewed action around race and equity, both in our district and across the nation, we cannot uphold diversity and equity as values in our district while partnering with a law enforcement agency  that remains in blatant violation of those principles. To quote my colleague, and Co-Chair of our Cancel the Contract: Antelope Valley coalition, Beth Cayetano: “Our AV schools are in disrepair and we see Black and Brown students being targeted. The Sheriff’s contract with the district should not be renewed, instead community leaders and students want to see those funds reinvested in school counselors, nurses, librarians, wrap-around services, and after school programs.”

About the author: Barron Gardner is a local advocate and teacher in the Antelope Valley Union High School District.

Filed Under: Opinion

98 comments for "Op-ed: AV teacher demands removal of police from schools"

  1. Runaway inflation, America’s borders out-of-control, cost of food and gasoline out-of-control, history repeats itself. Carbon copy, Germany, circa 1933, here in America it’s national socialist party democrats meting out political payback, imposing critical race theory.

    • Democrat politicians love high gas price and inflation almost as much as they do, ANTIFA looting and illegal immigration.

  2. What a bunch of feuding harpies! No wonder this nation is coming apart. Both political parties feuding, and it goes all the way down to local communities.

    • Highest gasoline price since Barack Obama, highest rate of inflation since Jimmy Carter, you are going to get an earful.

  3. We should allow students to open carry in school. then we won’t need police.

    I’m surprised that the conservatives haven’t pushed for that. It goes with their existing agenda regarding use of guns in this country.

    • Democrats believe what they believe. Period. That’s that. No matter how theoretically impeccable we may be, we can hope to make no impression upon you people, whatsoever.

      It’s hopeless. You people are beyond reason.

      Aberranced fundamental misconceptions of contemporary conservatism, whacked-out democrats are intellectually incapable of arguing either side to any particular issue. Any attempt they grope to make, they grossly distort, a function of self-serving propaganda.

      e.g., “CONSERVATIVES WANT GUNS IN OUR SCHOOL!” [sic]

      Something which all Americans agree, we need our students in school, to study. And, learn. The only exception — archery — otherwise caught carrying weapons on campus, constitutes automatic expulsion.

      That’s the way it’s been. That’s the way it will always be.

      • U can always tell Fox News watchers because at some point they always……ALWAYS, parrot the phrase “whacked out Democrats. It’s Tuckers favorite thing to say. So we know this guy does. Right Beecee, it’s one of your favorites too I’ve noticed.

      • Shallow, devious, obtuse, myopic, petty, evasive, always picking around the meat of the matter, party democrats are much like 3rd graders in substance. So busy bankrupting the nation and alienating us, concocting defective, divisive policy, Democrats cannot be bothered rationalize their hypocrisy. Party democrats believe what they believe, save who may.

        • Oh, Stuart. You are a liar.

          Democrats keep restoring the economy after repulbicans trash it.

          Obama/Biden broght the country back from the brink that Bush left.
          Same with Biden/Harris who have to restore the country after Trump.

          It was Trump and his Republican Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other who tried to overthrow an election. 1/6 will go down in history like 9/11/ November 22, 1963, December 7. and so on thanks to to you and the GOP.

    • Not particularly bright, nor insightful, always with the first stupid thing off the top of their head, the individual above, posting under the name he’s plagiarized, “Wyatt Erp,” serves as a middle-of-the-road epiphany of today’s average democrat archetype. The extent of his intellect: “… how come Republicans don’t want children in schools carrying machine guns?”

      • Poor Sally, can’t tell when she’s being played.

        That was a sarcastic comment but not too far out for republicans to want it.

        Texas now wants no permits to carry guns. What could go wrong?

        “Intellect”??? There is no intellect at all in the Republican Party. It’s all “fear-based reaction, reaction, reaction”.

        Sally is any example.

    • Bless his heart, his hero is Wyatt Earp. He suggests kindergartners should carry 38 specials? The poor wretched soul, doesn’t seem particularly intelligent, does he?

  4. Problem with public education, too many teachers with degrees in “underwater basket weaving.”

    Solving the issue of problem teachers, politicizing our education system, we need to tweak our K-12 faculty prerequisite, eliminating all teachers who did not graduate with advanced degrees, in a scholastic discipline. History, biology, math, economics, geography, chemistry, geology, music are scholastic disciplines. These are the people we need, educating our youth.

    Degrees in “education,” or “administration,” or “the economics of Pico Union,” or “the systemic racism of the white-boy suburbs” are not scholastic disciplines. These people have no business teaching K-12.

    • Practically none of our K-12 teachers are SMEs. If you and I went back, matriculated transcripts, we wouldn’t find even 5% of our teachers in our K-12s, ever having written a masters’ thesis, much less ever having formulated a null hypothesis.

  5. Purge the politics out of public education, put the education back in, problem solved. So long as whacked-out democrats mandate opened, porus borders, and sanctuary city sanctuaries, you’ll have to mandate school police.

    • It’s the democrats, the gays, and the black community, doing psy-ops on your children, playing politics in your children’s classroom. They know they can’t get you. So, they’re making a grab for your children, instead.

      • Hahah, what type of crack are you taking?

        That was racist and you didn’t seem to hide it. Go rot

    • Never in the history of the democrat political party have they ever imposed a policy which benefits America. What democrats do is, divide and conquer, imposing divisive, unpopular policies which ensures they stay in power, keeping Americans at each others throats, divided, weak and frustrated.

  6. California’s best days are well behind her, now. It is well on its way to its impending self-destruction. California will soon fracture, Northern California and Mexifornia –

    • America’s 5 principle problems, as of this writing:

      1). PP&E
      – America’s physical assets, property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) are at their oldest levels in U.S. history.

      2). Faith in Government
      – worst crop of democrats in U.S. history, your president is senile.

      3). Election integrity
      – it’s Mark Zuckerburg & George Soros determining who’s elected, who isn’t.

      4). Dysfunctional, Corrupt, Incompetent Monetary Authority
      – America’s Federal Reserve has lost control of America’s money supply; China’s monetary authority has more control over the US$, than the US Treasury, and the US Federal Reserve, combined.

      5). Social Media & Mainstream Media
      – over 70% of today’s Americans no longer believe a word today’s journalists say.

    • I’ll take Mexifornia ! Give me family-oriented, warm and kind people any day over the sociopathic, wretched, detached, tech nerds who run the Bay Area.

      • Kinda have to agree,
        Good chunk of god fearing patriots up there but yeah, the ghey area sux.

  7. Barron Gardner has no business writing propaganda or teaching anyone. He is the problem he is referring to.

  8. Greatest policy in US history if you’re a hoodlum, a punk, a gang banger, or an illegal immigrant, the democrat political party’s beloved de-fund police initiative.

    • The most egregious wrongdoing in our schools, typically committed by faculty and staff, incentive wholly theirs, of course they’d want to distance themselves, de-fund police.

    • Five sobering statistics showing how out-of-step and incompetent these whacked-out democrats really are? See for yourself:

      1). 80% of all Americans deem Biden’s open-border policy a complete disaster, and demand the Trump Administration’s closure policy be immediately reinstated –

      2). Over 80% of all Americans oppose critical race theory –

      3). Over 80% of all Americans oppose ANTIFA –

      4). The most dismal score of all western nations, less 29% of all American merit any faith whatsoever in the truthfulness of America’s mainstream media –

      5). Over 90% of Americans are fed-up with the Biden administration’s performance, on inflation, energy policy and law enforcement –

        • …and have absolutely nothing to do with the article at hand. I call bot on ‘Alfred’.

          • So, Me. Neuman is a bot. Who’d a thunk it?

            Things I’ve noticed about right wingers posts here, there and everywhere. is that they think if they include a bunch of numbers or stats, no one will notice they are made up or copied from elsewhere, also made up.

            Then, there are the clowns that think we are impressed when they have a numbered list of their made up “facts”.

            Mr. A. E. Neuman did both. You gotta give him credit for that.

          • Exactly Beecee. We stopped Russia from having bots online to sow political discourse years ago. Oh wait…..never mind.

          • Gee, BeeEss… We don’t call YOU a bot, though you tend to provide less cogent thought than a bot does.

      • We don’t know just where those number are, now. Those percentages are always going to ebb and flow. About a week ago, those numbers of yours were fairly accurate.

    • The Biden administration cares more about censorship, less about education. If fact, the Biden administration just got caught red handed, performing illegal surveillance on Fox journalist, Tucker Carlson.

      • Pure projection, as usual. It’s YOUR clowns that were just caught doing that, trumplican.

      • This op-ed has nothing to do with education, per se. It’s about right, and wrong. Indoctrination. Mind control.

        Everyone knows it.

        Purging religion, purging conservatism, purging police from public education, left-wing radicals want a monopoly, on right & wrong. The gay community anointed itself arbiter, of what’s right; what’s wrong. And, they want no interference. Gay community demands exclusive, uncontested control, over public education.

        They know, they can’t get you. So, they’ll make a grab for your children, instead.

      • Busted!

        Cat’s-out-of-the-bag, all these far-fetched Republican conspiracy theories are showing an ever increasingly irritating habit, proving themselves not so far-fetched, after all.

        No room for argument, now. We definitively know, beyond any reasonable doubt, it’s federal law enforcement arm-twisting our mainstream media.

        Any journalist who dares step out-of-line, doesn’t play ball, gets taken down.

      • Tucker is a man who knows some skeletons are about to come out of his closet and he is getting ahead of it by saying they have been spying on me. Typical and classic Republican move. What u can’t defend, deflect, use whataboutism, don’t mind the man behind the curtain.

      • America, overwhelmingly in favor of a police presence in our schools? Yet, overwhelming in favor of a ban on federal law enforcement, pushing propaganda into our mainstream media, extorting and leveraging our journalists? The irony’s so thick, you could cut it with a butter knife.

  9. This “Cancel the Contract” attempt is a really bad idea; did you ever stop to think why the police were brought in in the first place? The teacher that takes full credit for a student’s downfall thinks too highly of himself, he doesn’t’ yield that much power. The student’s downfall was an accumulation of events in that young adult’s life.

    After something bad happens we (people in general) tend to think if only I would have done this or that to change the course of events everything would be OK now, sadly that’s not true. I believe we can make a positive difference in a person’s life but I also believe that removing the police (cancelling the contract) will have a negative impact on many of the law abiding students, students that need to be protected from the law breakers.

      • We know what you did in school nerd. Your goal was to grow up and be the av press liberal hall monitor , thanks Tim for keeping us safe. Please stay home it’s hot out.

    • ANTIFA run amok, policy community vilifying and de-funding police, of course crime’s out-of-control. We’ve lost control over our schools. We’ve lost control over the economy. We’ve lost control of America’s southern border. We’ve lost control of inflation. Price is out-of-control. Our president’s senile. The federal government’s out-of-control. Nobody knows who’s running the thing.

      • It’s the villainy of cops that has vilified the police…pointing it out isn’t the problem.

      • Tertiary symptom of Trump derangement syndrome: critical race theory. Once infected, may as well put a gun to your head. There is no vaccine; there is no known cure.

  11. We NEED to STOP our Children from learning the wrong subjects FIRST , like ”CRT”… Now, our kids are taught to judge their peers by the COLOR OF THEIR SKIN!!.. What a SICK idea that is.. A few years ago I met a board member for the local school district in my town. who was attacked by a student. She was in the hospital, off work for 3 months, then she came back to work & the ”STUDENT” was still there, he never was Suspended or any consequences dished out.. This is WHY we need Sheriff’s in our Schools now, more than ever. Why are PARENTS ”REWARDING” their kids for BAD BEHAVIOR is what I want to know! Why are kids so disrectful to adults? My only answer is that this behavior ”Starts at Home”.. Too many parents want to be their child’s BEST FRIEND! Be their Parent first, your child has a lot of ”Best Friends”

  12. Problem with public education isn’t faculty. It’s school administration. The democrats well know, they can’t get us. So, they’re packing our schools, making a grab for our children, instead.

    Whacked-out democrat radicals running our schools, politicizing public education, indoctrinating our children to be democrats, our teens are emerging K thru 12 socially promoted, to be anti-patriotic snowflake democrat ditto-heads unable to navigate life unless tethered to a handheld.

    Indoctrinating our children, to be more loyal to the democrat party then they are, their own country, public educations’ days are indeed numbered.

    Time to stop paying state tax. Time to stop paying property tax.

    • Were you home-schooled, D’Arcy?

      Your incoherent rant indicates a lousy education and you want us to accept your notions on education?

      Please, D’Arcy, stop paying your taxes. Let us know how that turns out.

    • You’re right. Studies have shown that people who are more educated tend to be more progressive in their ideologies and beliefs. They actually understand the pain and suffering of others through history and want equality for all. They don’t just believe one persons words as if they are all powerful and actually research topics.

      If people like you are so concerned with your child’s education and want them to stay ill informed then go ahead and home school them yourself and watch them turn out as dumb and ill informed as your comment was.

    • Our experience has been so disheartening. Our three children were raised in a patriotic, Christian home. They were all scouts. They were taught to be good people, to be accepting and inclusive of all people and to serve their community. We walked the walked and led by example.

      It started in high school with teachers and peer groups. One white teacher professed her hate for the country, Trump, whites, specifically white men. I felt sorry for her husband and son.

      A peer who came here as a ten year old from an Asian country professed the same things, despite the fact that she had a much better quality of life—parents both high up and successful in healthcare.

      It got much worse when two of them went to university. They started spewing the same stuff—hate the country, hate white men, open borders, defund the police, no incarceration for criminals. They are leftist—they love ‘the squad.’

      We are educated, open-minded, middle of the road folks. We saw good and bad in both parties so never really got entrenched in either side. I wonder if we were more opinionated if things would be different. While we had expectations and accountability, our kids had a fairly easy, good life. I think many college kids have no clue about the real world, just feel sorry for everyone. Compassion is good but not when it blinds.

      We can’t even talk to them! The third kid, different peers and no university, is completely different. The schools and peers really influence them.

      • Hey, Bob

        Is it possible that your kids saw the gap between purported “Christian values” and the actual way Christians behave in this country, i.e. monumental hypocrisy?

        They may have seen televangelists guilty of unsavory activities in the name God.
        They may have noticed politicians using religion while not practicing it.
        They may have noticed politicans claiming they are patriots while doing unpatriotic things.
        Then there’s the whole Catholic priest thing.

        It’s part of growing up and thinking for themselves to re-evalute faith and patriotism.

      • Anyone who says “we see good in both parties” and then turns to complaining about people despising Donald Trump is not genuinely looking at the GOP.

    • If you allow your children to attend public school, here in California? Expect their sentiments to grow increasingly loyal to communist China, and the democrat party, and their hatred for America to quietly smolder, beneath their snowflake facade.

      • Keep them out of school and ignorant of the world around them to maintain their loyalty to the GOP, AmIRite?

  13. Let’s leave that decision to the people who are truly in charge…..THE PARENTS. The parents are truly responsible for their kids upbringing and the costs.

  14. How about we “cancel the contract” with public schools like Antelope Valley High School where Barron Gardner works? That school is a Hot Sh** Sandwich on Wheels, full of nothing but chaos and little criminals and a staff that is primarily interested in collecting their generous state retirement benefits rather than actually doing any kind of educating.

    • When I was in Palmdale high school coaches were banging the students.

      If I had to go to that dump nowadays i’d walk out and never come back.

      Fact is they need more cops in the high schools

  15. #De-fund Robert Fuller’s family, that lied to the public knowing that he attempted suicide multiple times, including trying to lite himself on fire. Where do the funds from the gofundme page end up?

  16. … greatest windfall for organized crime since the Volstead Act, de-funding police –

    • Vote democrat, you get high unemployment, runaway inflation, you get economically molested at the gas pumps, and your children get brainwashed, with critical race theory. Allow democrats to overturn your right to bear arms, you get censored, you get canceled, you lose free speech, and you quintuple the rate of home invasion robbery. Defund police, you get the hoodlums, the punks, the gangbangers, BLM, ANTIFA, and organized crime.

    • … the three step doctrine to democrat enlightenment (e.g., having once read this, you too can be a ditto-head democrat!).

      1). dis everything off you don’t understand as, a “Conspiracy Theory” –
      e.g., label all thought extracurricular or exogenous to democrat talking, points a conspiracy.

      2). when that doesn’t work, dis it off as “Hypothesis” –
      e.g., democrats refer to conspiracy theories which turn out to be true as, a hypothesis.

      3). when you finally realize, you were flat wrong, dis all it off as a big joke –
      e.g., democrats then refer to conspiracy theories which turn out to be true, as common knowledge (e.g., remember to say to yourself, “… of course, I knew this all along; we didn’t acknowledge this knowledge because it was good for the nation”).

      • Are you saying that I — as a Democrat — should suspend all logic and succomb to your belief that there are actual lizard people shapeshifting? …Jewish space lazers? …Pizzagate? …a flat earth?

  17. Thats where you need the Cops the most . Over by AV. High School. The the worst area in Lancaster.

  18. anyone want to engage with any of the actual points in the article? as for safety, there is no wording in the avhsd/lasd contract that says the cops are there to protect anyone. after the parkland fl. shooting in which 18 people were shot and the cop on campus did nothing, a federal court ruled that the cop had no responsibility to protect any students unless in custody. its not their job to protect students. cite the school shooting that was stopped by a campus cop, i think there was one. if there is an emergency, they can call the cops like anyone else. the district doesnt have to pay them to stand around all day. when the shooting at highland occured, the cop on campus made no difference. the police were called and they handled the situation. get out of your feelings.

  19. We had officers at AV High when I was in school in 1982. They help stop drugs, kids skipping school, fights, guest what. No Mass Shootings then. You could buy a handgun at K mart. Most races got along. Stoners were the worst problems then. Man sure wish we could go back to the 80s.

      • And Parents also called you a dumbass when you screwed up and spanked you instead of blaming it on other people. If you failed in school it was on you and not the teachers fault. Now kids can’t fail and their parents make them feel like they are more important than everyone else.

    • Critical race theory, reverse racism, de-funding police, these whacked-out ultra-left wing public educators, bent on subverting California into an totalitarian socialist-utopia are, in effect, committing career suicide.

      It’s self-destruction looming ever imminent, public education as once knew it, will cease to exist.

      Policy blow-back, de-funding police creates so behemoth a vacuum, L.A. Street Gangs will inevitably take over our public schools. Soon enough, the risk will be so great, you’ll have little choice but migrate your children to Utah, Idaho or Montana, for a traditional public education.

    • Best option for public education, maintain current funding, subsidize school lunch, halve administrative staff at district and k-12 level, create incentives parent participation, increase police presence, ban CRT, ferret out and purge every last ANTIFA, BLM and communist sympathizer from school faculty –

  21. Well what happens when one of these kids stab a teacher? Going to call a Social Worker? Heres a thought how about the Black and Brown learn how to behave.

  22. This is just an extension of the “Defund the Police” idiocy. All the cities that have followed through with that madness have lived to regret it.

  23. Sandy Hook and the murders in South Carolina at a church are two prime examples of why we need armed law enforcement on campuses and at events where the public is congregated. A bad cop who is not doing his/her job can be replaced and reassigned, but dozens of school children or 9 church members who are murdered cannot be replaced. Stick with the cops on campus and at public events!

  24. Typical liberal socialist school teacher. Half truths, misconstrewed facts, and misleading statements. The two shootings he references are good shootings. In one the crook kidnapped a woman for 6 days and when the Sheriffs tracked him down he started shooting at then. The other crook beat his girlfriend and fought with the Sheriffs and tried to take their gun when they tried to check on her welfare. Society is better off without these violent crooks.

    • The biggest lie ever perpetuated is how these teachers pretend to “care”. They are teachers because they couldn’t find jobs anywhere else and that tenure and CalStrs benefit at 55 ain’t nuthin’ to sneeze at.

  25. I’d like to see a single instance where an armed officer in a school has cost a law abiding student their life.

    Are we complaining because they are already on location when it’s been necessary to arrest a student who’s disrupting their class?

    • How could Lancaster maintain the largest Sheriff contract when you remove the school deputies contract from the high school. I am concerned they are working out of the Lancaster station that happens to have highest crime rate in all LA County.

      • Lancaster is a hot mess. It’s been a steady decline for the past 13 years ever since Bird Man took over. He was always in the background pulling strings but now we get to see all of his ‘creativity’ come to the forefront. Birds on the BLVD, Chinese birth tourism, black road paint, Ecolution, that failed power stick off of H, mistreatment of homeless to the point of suggesting they be shot for attempted robbery, Eye in the Sky, endless lawsuits…………………………………………………….the beat goes on.

  26. Perhaps Barron Gardner should watch a certain comedy sketch by Chris Rock on how to interact with law enforcement.

    • I wonder how much actual “teaching” this guy does in a normal work day at that high school? Probably spends 95% of the time on that campus making sure nobody gets stabbed, shot or raped in the bathrooms. The other 5% is probably spent on bribing the kids to complete a simple 3rd grade level worksheet.

  28. Laws without law enforcement is straight idiocy. And this is the state of our educators.