Pittsburgh school district will review, publicize school police arrest data

Pittsburgh Public Schools is taking new measures to analyze and address school police data.

The district this week approved a proposal by Superintendent Anthony Hamlet to conduct an external investigation into data pertaining to school arrests, citations and out-of-school suspensions. The data will be sorted into characteristics like gender, race and age to help assess differences in the frequency of calls for service.

Hamlet referenced a recent town hall and report from the Black Girls Equity Alliance, which indicated an increasing role of schools in Allegheny County’s juvenile justice system, especially for Black students. Among other key findings, the report found that Pittsburgh Public Schools police are the largest juvenile justice referral source for Black girls in the county, and district students are referred to law enforcement at higher rates than other U.S. cities.

Reviewing the district’s data, Hamlet said, will be a starting point to understand the root causes in arrest disparities.

“We’re serious about understanding our data and doing better by our children,” he said. “That’s the focus.”

Another resolution from board members Pam Harbin and Devon Taliaferro determined that police data would be publicized online and discussed more regularly in public meetings. In addition, a task force dedicated to reimagining school safety will convene no later than Nov. 1.

While school administration officials and school board members will serve on the task force, most of its members will be community residents. The group will conduct listening sessions, review the school safety manual, evaluate the effectiveness of current practices and recommend new strategies.

According to the resolution, 80% of students arrested by school police officers between 2015 and 2020 were Black, despite Black students making up only 52% of the district’s enrollment. A disproportionate amount of arrests of Black students lead to charges of disorderly conduct — which the resolution calls a “highly discretionary” charge.

“This is the most egregious thing that can happen to a student under our care,” Harbin said.

Much of Wednesday’s meeting was spent discussing and adjusting semantics of the resolution. Board member Terry Kennedy was concerned the committee would become unbalanced if clear parameters were not set – she feared dissenting opinions would be “intimidated.” Her motion to amend the resolution in this regard was eventually defeated, however.

Adjustments were made throughout the discussion to ensure committee members were district residents and to include any district staff — not just teachers and administrators — in the conversations.

Board member Sala Udin thanked Harbin and Taliaferro on their work but claimed their resolution did not go far enough in addressing racism. He said the resolution “tiptoes” around criticizing Hamlet and the district administration.

“The resolution attempts to gloss over the role of institutional racism as practiced by the administration,” he said, “and I don’t think we will be able to solve the real problems of school safety if we’re not willing to confront institutionalized racist practices and identify who the perpetrators are.

“I think that as we go forward, we will have to be willing to criticize even our friends and people we are in close collaboration with in order to tell the truth, and I think that this resolution fails to do that,” he added.

Udin said he plans to make a “generalized” amendment to the resolution in the future, to make it more anti-racist.

Cheryl Kleiman, a staff attorney at the Education Law Center, agreed with Udin’s assessment that the resolution fell short of addressing racism within the district, but said the measures passed Wednesday are a significant step forward. Making arrest data available online, and contracting an external firm to analyze it, will be valuable to school leaders and community members, she said.

“Transparency, accuracy and timely data is incredibly important in understanding what is going on in our schools, what children are experiencing on a day-to-day basis and to inform all of us,” Kleiman said. “I applaud the district for recognizing that it wants to improve its understanding of the problem and bring in an outside expert to help them do that objectively.”

“The community task force and having an opportunity for parents, students and community partners to be at the table addressing the problem is a critical piece,” she added. “The voices of the most impacted must be part of driving the solutions.”

There has been a longstanding debate in the district about police in schools, with many arguing their presence causes arrests and citations to increase, contributing to the “school-to-prison pipeline.” Last year, five schools in the district were among the state’s highest in arrests and citations.