"It's the cherry on the cake"

December 1, 2008

In September 2008, TDSB schools opened their doors not only students, but twenty police officers.  As a part of the new ‘Police in Schools’ program, twenty Toronto high schools, selected at random, have been introduced to their new School Resource Officers. However, this mildly controversial move has aroused a wide array of opinion.

Newtonbrook Secondary School is a North York public high school that has been one of the schools to receive an officer for its campus.  Although not connected, Newtonbrook has encountered a stabbing early in the year, as well as a lockdown that trapped students inside classrooms for nearly five hours.  According to teachers and students, the stabbing was not in any way related to any of the outbursts of violence that have occurred within Toronto high schools in the past three months. 

Apart from those worries, there is little information actually disclosed about the Police in Schools program.  No one seems to really know what the program is, who has been selected and for what reasons.  The students themselves, along with the teachers are left to wonder. 

Officer Gary Wright is a School Resource Officer, and a police officer for 32^nd division with the Toronto Police force.  His duties include relationship-building with the students, and being as active as he can be within the community.  His position was a response for a job call, followed by an application and a selection process. 

“It’s a good idea,” says Wright, “but it’s going to take some time to get used to until it can be as effective as it can be.” 

Haroula Belfiore, a well-respected teacher at Newtonbrook comments on students’ reactions.  “They don’t like it,” she says. “They’re thinking, ‘Why do we have a cop in the school?’”

When asked about the issue, a source who preferred to remain anonymous stated, “If you keep treating people like animals, they eventually will become animals.”

Tom Kolin, Vice-Principal of the school explained that in order for a school to be selected for this program, the principal trustee and the superintendent all must agree.  As the above source shared, Newtonbrook’s principal, Lynne Koffman allegedly begged for a police officer in the school.

Newtonbrook recently added a third hall monitor to its staff, as well as a requirement for each student to wear their timetable and student card on a lanyard, all under the soon-to-be installed 11 security cameras, 6 of them outside. 

“All schools are going to be having cameras,” said Tom Kolin.  “You want to make sure that students are safe, but you don’t want to create a hysteria.  It’s not necessary.”

Belfiore, however, stated several times that the police officer, as well as the other measures was simply creating a sense of urgency within the student body.  “We need to be proactive, not reactive,” she says. “We need to create family as opposed to a prison.”

The students seem to share different views.  While some say they never see the police officer, others are fuming.  “It’s the intimidation program,” says 13^th grade student Inna Yakovlev, “it’s a cheap imitation of a prison.  It has no effects, it just gets us mad.”

Is the overall image of Toronto schools getting battered?  This appears to be the only thing everyone has agreed on: Toronto schools aren’t looking so good anymore.

Students are feeling less proud to be walking the halls they used to respect.  Teachers think that the public does not have enough information, and everyone believes the school reputations have gone down. 

“It can be positive,” says another teacher, Amalia Palas, “it’s not a jail.”

The issue at hand, however, comes down to not the security, not the administration, but the society as a whole.  It seems more and more students are getting into trouble, and that is what should be changed. 

“Crime in the city has gone down, but teen involvement and access to drugs is richer.  Level of violence is higher.  Greater access to guns, illegal weapons.  And most of it happens in poor neighbourhoods.  People just don’t have hope.  It’s a social and economic problem,” says Kolin.

The problem is that teenagers are somehow getting their hands on weapons, and their presence makes it easier for worse reactions to problems. 

“Society is changed, it’s becoming worse,” says Belfiore. “We can never pinpoint one thing.  What’s important is, how can we get to the students before they get into trouble, not after? ”