Schools Getting More Police but at the Expense of Counselors, Nurses: Report
March 5, 2019
By: Cheyenne Haslett
Source: ABC News
About 14 million students attend schools across the U.S. where they walk the halls alongside police officers but don’t have access to counselors, nurses, psychologists or social workers, according to an ACLU report released Monday.
And of the schools that do provide students access to mental health professionals, about 90 percent fail to meet minimum staff-to-student ratio, which the report found can mean one counselor is responsible for more than 400 students.
But the increasingly popular decision to fund police officers in schools, combined with a lack of mental health experts available, has had a disproportionate effect on both students of color and students with disabilities, the report found. Nationwide, these marginalized students were subject to more discipline bias and overcriminalization than their peers, according to a review of 2015-2016 data from the Department of Education.