Schools with many students of color are disproportionately deprived of funding and staffing. The Chicago Teachers Union has been outspoken about the racism of that city’s school system.

But “having UTLA on our side added way more people to the movement,” Monroy said. Students had been organizing on this issue since 2016. “We shouldn’t have to fear it in school.” “We fear it outside of school,” said Amee Monroy, a Students Deserve activist who is a Dorsey senior this year. Students and parents spoke up about why searches weren’t making schools safe. High school students designed and handed out 18,000 #studentsnotsuspects buttons. They organized forums and protested at school board meetings. So UTLA teamed up with Students Deserve and the American Civil Liberties Union to launch the Students Not Suspects campaign. They also argued the searches were a waste of time that could be spent learning. Teachers and counselors said when they were asked to conduct the searches, it broke the trust they were trying to build with students. “Of course we would,” was the leaders’ response, she said, “but we have to build and organize around it.” “He never thought that the union would be interested in the issue,” Inouye said. She recalled one teacher in particular who brought the issue to her attention. JOINED STUDENT ACTIVISTSįour years before the strike, teachers came to union leaders complaining about the searches, Inouye said. And in June, the board voted to sunset the random searches with the end of the 2019-2020 school year. With UTLA’s help, a union ally won the seat. Other union wins were class-size caps, more staff, legal support for undocumented students, and green space on school campuses.īut the strike momentum led to a bigger win on the issue. In the deal that ended the strike, the district committed to a pilot program, letting 14 schools apply to opt out of the searches right away 14 more would become eligible two years later. “Because the strike brought out public opinion in support of our issues,” said United Teachers Los Angeles Secretary Arlene Inouye, “we were able to leverage that at the end to get things we would never get before.” The district ignored these-until the walkout. “It felt very serious it creates a sense of anxiety.” MADE THEM BARGAINĮnding random searches was one on a long list of union demands that the district did not legally have to bargain over. She was taken aback by the way the students were spoken to.

“It was really disturbing and scary for me, even as the teacher,” she said. When the random search happened in her classroom, she was shocked. Teacher Sharonne Hapuarachy sponsors the Students Deserve chapter at Dorsey High. “I had so many questions after that experience.” “As Black and Brown students, we have all of these things piled up against us,” said Doss.

Marshé Doss, a senior at Dorsey High School during the strike, had been searched and had her hand sanitizer confiscated a school official accused her of bringing it to school to get high. Students said it made them feel like suspects at their own schools.

The student-led group Students Deserve, which also includes parents and teachers, reported that students in magnet schools and advanced classes were rarely searched. Contraband included markers, highlighters, Wite-Out, lighters, and body spray.Īnd the “random” searches weren’t so random. NOT SO RANDOMĪ University of California Los Angeles report on two years of searches (2013-2015) found that they confiscated overwhelmingly ordinary items, not guns and weapons. When these staff are short-handed, teachers and counselors are sometimes asked to do the wanding. Students are pulled out of class while administrators and security officers search their bags and scan them with a metal detector. was one of very few districts using random searches-only 4 percent do nationwide. The district started this practice 30 years ago after a school shooting, with the stated goal of keeping weapons out. After listening to students about their top concerns, strikers highlighted the issue of random searches. strike elevated a wide range of demands, including smaller class sizes and more nurses and social workers. Paul, and other cities, are making contract demands to confront segregation, underfunding, and the criminalization of the students they teach-problems that hit Black and Latino students hardest. teacher union activists, like their counterparts in Chicago, Seattle, St. Now these searches are coming to an end districtwide-landing a blow against racism in the schools. By the time they walked back into work, they had won a partial victory. One year ago, Los Angeles teachers on strike were demanding an end to random searches where students were yanked out of class to be frisked.

Public schools are so random