Every day, I send my children to school with a smile on my face—and abject fear in my heart. Imagine sending your child to school, not knowing if today is the day they lock eyes with the wrong officer or the wrong student and end up abused, demoralized, or—in the worst-case scenario—may not come back home at all.
Enough is not being done to protect our kids, which is why I chose to channel that fear into action as a member of the Parent Leadership Team for Students Deserve. Students Deserve is a youth-led organization focused on improving the livelihood of Black and Brown students in Los Angeles. We want our schools to stop bringing criminalization and policing into our schools, defund the police, and defend the lives of our children.
Right now, too many LA Unified School District (LAUSD) campuses are unreliably safe. Instead of being protected, our young people are too often criminalized, silenced, and treated as threats rather than children in need of understanding. The increase in ICE raids has led to lower enrollment, and students are walking out of class to protest their fears and stand up for their families.
And, with the recent announcement of massive layoffs that included Parent Education Support Assistants, bus dispatchers, and Parent Community Facilitators, the district is planning to remove even more adults who look out for our children from campuses.
Our team is demanding that LAUSD take bold action to protect students without police involvement. No child should fear that stepping onto school grounds could put their family at risk of deportation. Now is the time for LAUSD, a district that has educated millions of immigrant and undocumented students for generations, to demand that deported or kidnapped LAUSD students be returned to their families and communities. The District must expand Dream Centers, provide legal support for students and families facing criminalization or deportation, and offer mutual aid support to families left behind when loved ones are detained or deported.
We also call on LAUSD to end the criminalization of Black youth and continue funding the Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) throughout schools. Too often, when a Black student expresses frustration or acts out, police are called before a caring adult even has a chance to intervene. This practice tells our children that their emotions make them dangerous, that their mistakes make them criminals. That is not education—that is punishment dressed up as discipline.
Instead of calling the police, schools must commit to peaceful, restorative resolutions. LAUSD must continue to improve its implementation of School Wide Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (SWPBIS) and Restorative Justice, policy changes that students and parents fought for to support schools to address conflicts without police. The district must also expand community-based safety programs so that every BSAP school, priority school, and community school can implement a full community-based safety team to include safe passage providers, school climate advocates, and mental health professionals—all trained to interrupt racial terrorism and prevent, intervene in, and de-escalate conflicts.
The district must recognize a painful truth: the police are not the answer to the challenges faced by our young people, including those who may act out aggressively. Our Black children are not problems to be solved—they are evolving young adults trying to figure out life, often while carrying the weight of poverty, trauma, and systemic racism. What they need is support, not punishment. What they need are mentors, counselors, and community members who see their potential—not police who see a threat.
We call on the Board to take immediate action: defund, keep out, and remove any remaining police from schools; expand mental health and counseling services; expand restorative justice and climate advocacy programs; ensure that immigrant families are protected; and confront anti-Blackness, harshly, wherever it appears in our classrooms and campuses.
Our children deserve to feel safe and valued every time they walk into school. Safety built on fear and policing is not safety at all. Real safety comes from love, justice, and community care. LAUSD has the power to lead by example—to build schools where every child can learn, grow, and dream without fear.
The time for that change is now.