LAUSD's random search policy will end next July. Any new safety measures cannot include increased police presence or randomly picking students in any other form.
Audience members celebrate after the LAUSD school board voted June 18 to end their controversial policy of interrupting classes to randomly search students with metal detector wands,
Even during a time of heightened anxiety spurred by mass shootings such as that at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., the stance by the Los Angeles Unified School District on random searches has been unique — of the nation’s 15 largest districts, it’s the only one to require daily random searches, according to a 2018 report by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The timing of the policy flip is in part a reflection of a changing school board that has faced issues of new leadership, a board member’s money laundering scandal, threats of a financial breakdown, a teachers’ strike, declining enrollment and a constant battle between charter and traditional schools.Even former defenders such as Castro came to view the current enforcement as counterproductive and ineffective.
Though schools don’t keep track of who is searched, the fact that the only major district to implement such searches is majority non-white and low-income suggests that these students face surveillance more than their white, wealthier counterparts elsewhere, students and activists say.“It’s the scarecrow effect,” L.A. School Police Assn. President Gil Gamez said during the school board’s recent meeting.
“Wanding might not be the answer but then what is the answer?” Gonzalez asked. “How is the district going to be proactive about making sure the schools have resources to address the problems that come up?”Many students plucked out of classes for searches said they feel as though administrators are treating them like criminals, that their learning is disrupted and they are less likely to trust adults on campus.
The searches erode the trust between students and adults at schools and interrupt learning time, Nadera said. “It just changes the atmosphere of school, it doesn’t feel like a loving environment. … It feels like a prison,” she said.Violence in L.A. has decreased significantly since its peak in the 1990s, but hundreds are still killed every year in the county, and those deaths heavily affect schools and students.
Because administrators don’t keep track of the race or gender of the students searched, there’s no way to know whether black students are unfairly targeted, McKenna said. “I will accept the criticism. I know it’s a discomfort, I know it’s a distraction. I know it’s not something you look forward to. But I would rather be safe than sorry.”
Still, Zelsdorf said, it is shortsighted to sunset a policy without knowing what the new safety measure will be. “I would have liked to see a new plan to vote on,” she said.
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