The Long Beach Unified School District’s board of trustees has unanimously adopted a new school safety policy: Rather than involving local police when a student is suspected of a small crime, LBUSD will give district officers the authority to intervene.
The policy elicited some concern when introduced at the previous board meeting, but the district returned to Wednesday’s meeting with a modified plan that incorporated feedback and passed muster with both the board and community members.
Chris Covington, an activist for violence-prevention in schools, signaled support for the measure during public comment. “This new modification and authority will give the district the opportunity to put students on a path to success,” Covington said. “We stand in support of the modification — cautiously.”
Beginning in January, armed school safety officers, or SSOs, will have the power to cite and arrest students for misdemeanors and infractions, which previously required outside law enforcement. When cited, students will have the chance to participate in a diversion program, wiping citations from their records. The plan aims to reduce the presence of outside law enforcement in schools and shift the narrative on school safety, an ongoing district project.
In response to questions asked at the last meeting, the district’s director of school safety, Cameron Smith, highlighted key dimensions of the new plan. Though SSOs will be classified as state law enforcement, Smith was clear in distinguishing them from police. “We look through that K-12 system lens,” he said.
On top of state-mandated requirements, SSOs will undergo training on trauma-informed de-escalation, supporting LGBTQ+ students, mental health issues, implicit bias, child abuse and discriminatory harassment, Smith said. SSOs will work to build positive relationships with students and overcome any trauma students have experienced with law enforcement.
The new policy will expand the district’s diversion program, ensuring all Long Beach students receive the opportunity for intervention, Smith said. Restorative justice — a process that engages offenders, victims and community in conversation — will be the guiding philosophy of the district’s diversion approach.
Already, the district has implemented a system for triaging calls and responding with nonviolence, Smith explained. When LBUSD staff call the office of school safety, a dispatcher sends different resources to the scene depending on the situation. A defiant elementary student would likely elicit a school intervention specialist trained on conflict resolution. Student mental health crises would trigger licensed therapists to respond. School safety officers are only deployed in the event of suspected criminal activity, Smith explained.
These changes are part of a cascade of reforms the office of school safety has made, many in collaboration with Safer LBUSD, a coalition of community members advocating for violence prevention in schools and co-led by Covington and Kim Tabari.
“I would just like to commend you and your staff,” board president Diana Craighead said, noting she was already observing a cultural shift in how school safety officers relate to students. Still, Smith and his team have yet to spell out exactly what guardrails will be installed.
He intends to create a portal for grievances, an oversight committee and pathways for principals to raise concerns to him, he said. Smith projected these would be in place by March when pressed by board member Maria Isabel López, yet he vowed to take his time. “We cannot rush this process,” Smith said. “I want to make sure that it’s done correctly so it’s effective.”
Before the implementation in January, Smith and his team plan to work with local law enforcement to clearly delineate processes and jurisdiction in memoranda of understanding.
In the meantime, Tabari of Safer LBUSD said she looks “forward to educating the community as to what this means.” There won’t be officers placed at every school, she said, as some parents thought, nor will SSOs be removed from schools. Rather, the approach aims to diffuse tensions and stymie fights so that “students just get to be students — and just get to be kids,” she said.