What really happened here? Piecing together the story behind EPSB’s decision to bring back SROs
The Edmonton Public School Board’s school resource officer vote prompts ethical questions about the team’s selection, the report’s independence and credibility, and administration’s influence on board governance.
This story is the first in a series about the SRO decision. You can find part 2 here.
The Edmonton Public School Board voted on April 30, 2024, to re-enter a formal relationship with the Edmonton Police Service, which if it was in any doubt was clearly about reinstating school resource officers — armed, uniformed police in junior high and high schools in Edmonton. This post is a rough overview of my concerns about today’s decision: who made that decision, the selection of the research team, and the quality of the evidence upon which EPSB’s decision was based.
I have substantial ethical and methodological concerns about the report itself. I found suggestions in the report that what the public received may have been a re-crafted report from an earlier, more generalized report not focused on EPSB’s research question, with questionable selection. There is a strong probability that the EPSB report used a largely recycled survey instrument that was developed for ECSD. Further, and perhaps the most troubling, some concerning evidence suggests that the report may include content previously published in the report provided to Edmonton Catholic Schools and in an earlier report by one of the researchers that was funded by the British Columbia Human Rights Commission.
I seriously regret my decision not to speak out about these issues sooner. I kept my story quiet out of a desire not to rock the boat on the SRO question and put myself back in the spotlight. Further, it was not until I began reading both reports together along with the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association’s analysis of the ECSD report that I realized there was a pattern across the documents and did a deeper analysis that raised serious questions of academic integrity.
Selecting the perfect team
Administration made an effort from the start not to act in accordance with the motion from June 2020. Following the passage of the motion, division staff entered into a process to conduct a joint study with the Edmonton Catholic School Division and the Edmonton Police Service, despite the motion’s call for an independent study. I learned that this had gone as far as joint meetings to plan the report, and so I confronted the superintendent about what was happening. His response at the time suggested that staff had taken action without his direction, and subsequently, the RFP process began to select a research team to conduct the study.
I now believe that the RFP process was never initiated in good faith by division administration. A committee was formed to select a research team, but the majority of the members were division administrators in close proximity to the superintendent’s office and a principal who was previously involved in efforts to direct trustees away from publicly questioning the program through a behind-the-scenes “lunch-and-learn” session where we were provided with cheerful brochures by an SRO and principal. I believe the committee was stacked from the outset to select a team that would agree with division administration’s goals, not one that would provide a legitimate independent evaluation.
Initially, the board chair was asked by administration to represent the board on that committee; however, my colleagues decided that I should participate in the selection as the mover of the motion to request the report and someone with experience with research and academic research proposals. I know now just how unwanted my participation was, but I went in expecting a genuine good-faith process to select an independent team of academics that submitted an academically rigorous proposal that reflected the points outlined in the motion.
Early in the process, it became clear that this wasn’t the intention of other selection committee members. Among the submissions, there were three teams that met the requirements and were shortlisted. While I can’t disclose the identities of the teams who were not selected, I can describe them as one team whose proposal suggested they were opposed to SROs and another team whose proposal represented the most neutral view. As is not unusual in academia, I was familiar to some extent with some members of all three teams and the overall direction of their research.
Immediately, the first team was rejected by the other committee members. Arguing for their proposal was unlikely to get anywhere regardless of its quality, so I decided that the best route forward was to find a compromise with the rest of the committee.
Acting in good faith, I suggested that the most neutral team was the most suitable choice — it would provide a middle ground for pro- and anti-SRO positions and was most likely to produce a report that would stand up to scrutiny and be perceived as fair and independent. That team was composed of academics from a range of disciplines encompassing education, program evaluation, and criminology, coming from diverse cultural and political backgrounds. The proposal was academically rigorous with a clear methodology and a foundation in the existing research. However, in meetings, one staff person made comments disparaging me for my academic background when I tried to explain why these elements were important, and my views felt largely dismissed.
Further, when I attempted to point out that the choice of a team of criminologists and youth gang researchers would result in a study that would be widely criticized and which would expose the board to allegations of cherry picking to reach a desired recommendation (something I was myself trying to avoid by suggesting a middle-ground option), it was clear that other committee members were not interested in choosing a genuinely neutral option.
Additionally, even after requesting information on relationships with EPS and ECSD that showed the eventual successful bidders as having relationships with both organizations and the discovery that the same team was conducting the ECSD report, the committee was set on that choice, stating they saw the ECSD report as a benefit because it meant the team was already familiar with the program. The intent to produce an independent report was essentially thrown out the window, and it was obvious to me that this was headed towards the same sort of report that likely would have resulted from a shared process with ECSD and EPS.
At this point, committee meetings stopped, with the excuse that it was busy in schools. Time dragged on, dates were rescheduled, and summer 2021 arrived with no decision. My final interaction related to the committee was with the staff person responsible for coordinating the process on the day I went to collect my belongings from my office in the Centre for Education. At that point, my term was just weeks away from ending, which I mentioned, saying that if we were going to conclude the process, we should meet before I was done my time on the board. The tone of the response was everything I needed to confirm the delay wasn’t an accident. I believe the decision was intentionally delayed until I was off the board, ultimately delaying the report as well.
A tale of two reports
Subsequently, with the release of the ECSD report, the process became even more questionable. Despite a literature review that clearly showed the harms of SROs outweigh the benefits and a process that was essentially opinion research that heavily focused on police and school administrators’ views, the report recommended retaining SROs — perhaps unsurprising given that ECSD had requested a report showing the benefits of the program. Still, the research literature and the team’s own admission that there was insufficient data to show the program’s benefit clearly did not align with the recommendations, especially when even with the report’s iffy methodology, the numbers suggested that a not insignificant minority of students experienced serious harms.
During this time, the initial recruitment for the EPSB study went out over SchoolZone and via social media ads. The report’s language suggests that the initial recruitment may not have limited participants to members of the populations identified in the motion — the language in the final report carefully frames this as being “open to” a list of what the researchers describe as “special interest groups” (troubling language to use to describe research participants).
Similarly, in the text of the May 2022 recruitment email, the language suggests that this call was intended to ensure representation but was not necessarily limited to members of the listed groups:
“As part of the evaluation, we are conducting focus groups with current and former students and parents/caregivers and we are looking to ensure we include the voices of students and caregivers of students who identify as belonging to the following groups: Black, Indigenous, South Asian, East Asian or Southeast Asian, West Asian or Arab, Somali, any other racialized minority group, 2SLGBTQ+, disabled.”
Further, the call stated these focus groups were taking place over May and June 2022.
Several months later, long after that initial recruitment, a second call went out to cultural organizations and on SchoolZone seeking to recruit more participants from those identified communities. The numbers in the final report suggest significant issues with recruitment and a lack of attention to reflecting the demographics of EPSB families in focus groups and interviews. Among a total group of 62 current and former students, there was only one disabled participant and one Somali student. Among the parents of current or former students, out of 38 total, there were no Black or Somali participants and only one in the category of West Asian and Arab.
I can’t say for certain as I was not in the room, but this pattern, combined with other indicators, suggests that there may have actually been two reports produced. There is clear indication by the researchers that they had collected survey data from all student groups and then had gone back and removed “white, heterosexual, and non-disabled” students — this data appears to have been retained, however, and the research team’s language seems to reflect a disagreement with the report’s direction, framing those populations as excluded. The original RFP, it should be noted, called for a focus on particular populations, not the exclusion of the rest of the student population. The authors also make reference to an original data collection, a final sample, and the “current report,” further suggesting there may have been an earlier draft that did not meet the requirements. Also included are remarks about feedback from EPSB noting the original research question, adding to the evidence of a possible return to the drawing board:
“The final sample consisted of 5,349 respondents. However, as requested in the original motion directing this research and confirmed by EPSB administration, the current report focusses only on the responses of racialized students and students from other marginalized groups, including students who self-identify as disabled, students who self-identify as having a non-binary gender identity, and students who self-identify as a member of the 2sLGBTQ+ community. As noted by the EPSB: “The original research question specified that the study be limited to a distinct subset of students. Thus, responses from students who did not identify as any of the specified groups should not be included in this research.” Both the EPSB and researchers acknowledge that not all voices are represented in this research. However, the intent of this study was specifically to center the attitudes and experiences of racialized and other marginalized individuals.”
There are broader issues of participant selection as well, including heavy representation of academic high achievers — a population that is less likely to experience negative (or any) interactions with SROs.
From my position as a queer reader of the report, I also note the description of “White, heterosexual, male and female students without a disability” given that the 2SLGBTQ+ population includes heterosexual transgender people with binary gender identities. Researchers entrusted with a report of this nature should, at a minimum, understand that sexuality and gender are not synonymous.
In addition, despite substantial research evidence that neurodivergent (autistic and ADHD) students and students with learning disabilities and cognitive disabilities are at significantly elevated risk of harm from SROs (Counts et al., 2018; Layton & Addo, 2021; Meade, 2019; Merkwae, 2015; Rivkin, 2009; Shaver & Decker, 2017; Tulman & Weck, 2009; Tuttle, Prince & Behnken, 2024; Zirkel, 2019), the disabled category does not break out this group. Further, it does not consider the experiences of other disabled students who may also increased risk of police violence, such as Deaf or hard of hearing students. I would expect the researchers to have read the same literature I have, so the lack of attention to this distinction by a team of experienced researchers seems odd given the nature of the research question.
This is particularly troubling given that Lyle Sauter, one of the officers identified in an investigation of police misconduct and the SRO program, was later responsible for the death of a disabled man who died from positional asphyxia in the back of Sauter’s police van after being restrained by Sauter and his partner and then left alone. Sauter had a track record of misconduct before becoming an SRO and was even allowed to continue in the program after he was found guilty of discreditable conduct for the infamous sweatbox incident. In light of this, it is astonishing that the researchers did not inquire more deeply into disabled students’ experiences with school policing or address actions the division might take to protect this student population.
The decision to collect a broad data set also raises questions about the survey questions, which are not included in the report released to the public. It is unclear whether the researchers’ questions adequately investigated students’ experiences of marginalization. For example, when I searched the report for the word “racism” to see if this appeared in any questions, the word appears in the literature review and (tellingly) in students’ own comments about SROs.
Despite students’ descriptions of racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny, these comments are only briefly touched on in one sentence minimizing students’ reports and softening the language to describe incidents as “racially biased.” This is immediately followed by several sentences minimizing students’ reporting of negative experiences by emphasizing the number of students who reported positive experiences.
The report does not address students’ reports of abuse, including the forms of discrimination described above and descriptions of SROs engaging in victim blaming, harassing students who do not participate in prayers or singing the anthem, denying assistance to students who had experienced sexual violence and bullying, refusing to investigate sexual assault, name calling, sexual harassment, a male SRO entering girls’ change rooms, name calling, conducting full-body searches described as humiliating, restraining students (including finding it fun to handcuff a Black student), and physical violence including a very disturbing description of an SRO choking a student. These are simply dumped into a table of students’ survey responses and go unremarked in the analysis.
Examining the survey section, the focus seems to have been on questions about whether students wanted the program back and how they felt about it in general. Out of the section of the report focusing on survey results, the analysis suggests few questions were asked related to discrimination, although it is difficult to say absolutely for certain without the full set of questions being disclosed. Only five Likert scale questions seem to directly address this issue, each framed as “the SROs often treated X students worse than Y students,” using simple binary pairs of Indigenous/white, Black/white, other racial minority/White, male/female, and 2SLGBTQ+/other (again, there is a discomfiting approach to queer and trans identities here).
The analysis suggests that these questions were used to make inferences about students’ overall perception of bias by breaking down a question about perceived frequency of bias into identity categories. This question does not offer any insight into students’ individual experiences and comes well after the positive/negative experience question. Further, it fails to consider that a perception that something does not happen “often” does not mean something has not happened. These responses do not tell us that students have seen or not seen instances of bias by SROs but rather that they perceive them as happening at an unspecified frequency that is less than “often.”
Given that SROs are unlikely to display biased behaviour all the time and instances of discrimination may occur when other students are not present to observe them or may not recognize some forms of discrimination against another group as such, this question does not offer a useful insight. For example, incidences of racism could be uncommon but still cause substantial harm to racialized students — it is astonishing to think that as long as bias isn’t perceived as happening often, it is not something a study of this type should attend to.
At no point does the survey appear to have directly asked students about incidents of bias or discrimination by SROs they may have personally experienced or witnessed.
Overall, the structure of the survey, with its heavy focus on questions that are opinion focused and generalized, suggests again that the original intent was not to focus on these issues. An analysis of the identified student populations’ experiences seems to have been tacked on as an afterthought and then retconned into the redrafted report.
A tale of two reports becomes a tale of four
The report’s many incongruities become much less surprising after running both reports through software to identify similarities in the text. Large blocks of text in the literature review show as directly copied across both reports. In the data analysis, although, again, the survey questions are unknown, the results are reported in the same sequence (although it appears additional questions were added to the EPSB report about students’ contact with SROs), often using identical or near-identical language, suggesting that the survey instrument may have been largely unchanged between reports. In some sections, the software also highlighted areas in the data reporting section that were copied from one report to the other with only the numbers changed.
This similarity suggests that the instrument developed for the ECSD report was largely reused for the EPSB report despite significant differences between the research questions and stated purposes of the two studies. As a graduate student in the social sciences, my methodology courses are still quite fresh in my mind, and certainly my professors (all sociologists, as are criminologists) were quite clear that the methodology for a specific research project must be grounded in the research question, not simply bolted on afterwards.
Given that the EPSB report contract paid just under $150,000 and the ECSD/EPS report paid the researchers $137,000, one might expect a bit more than a copy-and-paste job.
A similar comparison between the EPSB report and a report conducted by Kanika Samuels-Wortley for the BC Human Rights Commission similarly shows entire chunks of content copied across from the BCHRC report into the literature review for the EPSB report.
That same literature review concludes that the evidence supports the disbanding of SRO programs across Canada if even a minority of the population demands it:
“Based on concerns raised by racialized community members, it is clear that some students, parents and community members are highly uncomfortable with police in schools. These stakeholders often fear that SLOs will contribute to the school-toprison pipeline and further impede the life chances of marginalized students. Although some may favour SLO programs, schools are supposed to support and nourish all students. Thus, even if a small minority of the population demands the removal of police from schools, this is sufficient to support the disbanding of SLO programs in Canadian schools.”
So, using the same body of evidence, the reports offer separate recommendations. Further, the survey data in the EPSB report showing a substantial minority do not want SROs back suggests the division not reinstate the program in keeping with Samuels-Wortley’s recommendation to the BCHRC that SRO programs be disbanded in such circumstances.
The amount granted to Samuels-Wortley for the BCHRC report is unclear.
Scot Wortley has also conducted reviews related to a range of policing issues, including SROs, across Canada. Those reports remain to be analyzed, but a troubling pattern emerges across these three documents that merits further investigation.
Principal to trustee in one easy step?
Finally, we need to talk about cooling-off periods between working as a school division administrator and becoming a trustee. Three recently retired principals who were elected to the board in 2021 were responsible for this push to return police to schools. Watching them today was stomach churning: seeing them pointedly ignoring the majority of speakers who opposed police in schools and cheerfully welcome their recent former principal colleagues made it clear that they were not there to listen to the public but to represent an administration bent from day one of the removal of SROs to ensure they came back. One of the principles in the trustee handbook is that trustees will enter into a decision with a genuinely open mind, but that was clearly not on display today.
It is extraordinary that someone can be a principal or senior division leader under the superintendent’s authority and then on the board supposedly representing the public interest in division governance the next. Many non-profit organizations have requirements for a substantial break between being an employee and becoming a member of the board — I’m on the board for one that has a five-year break required before someone can run. Yet somehow we do not have the same standard for school boards, resulting in trustees who are there to represent the superintendent, not their constituents.
I believe that trustee candidates in 2025 should make this an election issue — it is a serious governance issue that has largely gone unexamined and risks undermining the purpose of elected school boards as bodies that represent the public interest in public education.
References
Counts, J., Randall, K. N., Ryan, J. B., & Katsiyannis, A. (2018). School Resource Officers in Public Schools: A National Review. Education and Treatment of Children, 41(4), 405–430.
Layton, D., & Addo, R. (2021). Defunding School Resource Officers: A New Commitment to Student Safety. Journal of Policy Practice and Research, 2(4), 264–269. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42972-021-00042-1
Meade, W. (2019). Handcuffs in Schools: Do School Resource Officers Fill a Role in Special Education? Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership, 22(1), 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555458918790305
Merkwae, A. (2015). Schooling the Police: Race, Disability, and the Conduct of School Resource Officers Notes. Michigan Journal of Race & Law, 21(1), [i]-182.
Rivkin, D. H. (2009). Decriminalizing Students with Disabilities School-to-Prison Pipeline Symposium. New York Law School Law Review, 54(4), 909–954.
Shaver, E. A., & Decker, J. R. (2017). Handcuffing a Third Grader: Interactions between School Resource Officers and Students with Disabilities. Utah Law Review, 2017(2), 229–282.
Tulman, J. B., & Weck, D. M. (2009). Shutting off the School-to-Prison Pipeline for Status Offenders with Education-Related Disabilities School-to-Prison Pipeline Symposium. New York Law School Law Review, 54(4), 875–908.
Tuttle Prince, A., & Behnken, M. P. (2024). School Resource Officers and Students With Disabilities: Wilson v. City of Southlake (2019). Intervention in School and Clinic, 59(3), 215–217. https://doi.org/10.1177/10534512231156891
Zirkel, P. A. (2019). School Resource Officers and Students with Disabilities: A Disproportional Connection? Exceptionality, 27(4), 299–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/09362835.2019.1579725
