Over the last decade, TFTP has been reporting on the encroachment of the police state into the public education system. As we previously reported, schools across the country are increasingly hiring police officers to do the job that teachers and guidance counselors once did. This is resulting in the criminalization of childhood as well as increased police violence against children. Never, however, have we reported on what you are about to read below.
While the data shows that students have declining access to a kind and caring role model to guide them through their high school careers, the number of students who have access to a police officer is growing.
A whopping 1.6 million (k – 12th grade) students attend a school that employs a law enforcement officer — but has no counselor.
According to a Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) survey, which counted cops in schools for the very first time in 2014, 24 percent of elementary schools and 42 percent of high schools have armed police officers. In schools with higher concentrations of minorities that number skyrockets.
Now, as schools districts react to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing something even more ominous than an increase in cops in schools. We are seeing cops going to the homes of students.
Parents of at least 1,500 children in St. Louis County are speaking out this month after armed officers have been showing up to their homes. To be clear, the children have not been accused of a crime, instead, the cops are showing up to discuss grades with students and parents — while carrying their guns.
Yes, you read that correctly. Armed agents of the state — with absolutely zero training in how to teach children — are going door to door to talk to children and parents about their grades. The parents who have been visited, however, aren’t buying it, don’t want it, and say that officers showing up at their homes is a scare tactic.
