PPS School Security Investment Proposal: millions for police and ineffective surveillance technology?

As part of the proposed 2023-24 school year budget, Portland Public Schools (PPS) management is requesting funding in response to an increase in gun violence impacting the city's youth. According to journalist Julia Silverman of The Oregonian, the funding request to be discussed at the May 9 School Board meeting includes "$150K for a 'roving weapons detection system' that could get set up at basketball games and pep rallies," as well as "'emergency alert' devices to every classroom." 

Additionally, writes Silverman on her Twitter feed, "the district is also proposing $3 million in safety/security improvements for 23-24, including: $1.3M for more campus safety associates at all MS and HS," as well as "$250K for 'walking patrols.'"

Simultaneously, as part of its strategy to improve school safety, PPS management recommends the "launch (of) a district-wide campaign to promote a culture of belonging and acceptance." In contrast to this goal for many students who are against and adversely impacted by police presence in schools, the district is looking to "rebuild and reimagine" the Youth Services Division in partnership with the Portland Police Bureau. This investment is being planned while PPS is cutting upwards of 90 teaching positions for the 2023-24 school year.

District leadership has been moving towards closer collaboration with the Portland Police Bureau since January. Since winter, PPS has been hosting safety forums advertised as an opportunity for public input. Instead, these events--at least the forum held at McDaniel High School--have featured exclusively pro-police panelists and have tightly controlled, or as the district says "curated," questions from the audience. As one attendee of the McDaniel forum, a member of Cop Watch, a grassroots organization promoting police accountability, remarked, the event could have been categorized as "cop-aganda" for its promotion of police and police-adjacent "security" solutions in schools without alternative views presented.

The district's proposed security-oriented funding request follows what seems to be a national trend to ramp up student surveillance and enmesh police in public schools yet again following the decision of numerous districts to discontinue the use of armed school resource officers in response to the demands of the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Three years later, the pendulum seems to have swung in the direction of law and order all across the U.S. This month the news reports that in Delaware, there’s a push for a new bill calling for more school resource officers. Meanwhile in Arizona, the Phoenix Union school district is considering the return of school resource officers to campuses, as Wisconsin Assembly Republicans are looking to force Milwaukee Public Schools to have at least 25 Milwaukee police officers stationed in its buildings thanks to a provision into a sweeping bill that would increase funding for local governments.

May alone is teeming with efforts from all across the nation to implement weapons detection systems. For instance, Fredericksburg City Public Schools, a school district in Virginia, "is applying for a federal grant to put sensors, artificial intelligence and other smart technology in each school building to screen students and detect concealed weapons." Also in Virginia, the Prince William County School Board voted unanimously last week to install Evolv artificial intelligence weapons detection system in 35 middle, high and K-8 schools throughout the county starting in August. In the same vein, Jefferson County Board of Education in Louisville, Kentucky is voting this week on funding the placement of Evolv weapon detection systems in schools. Meanwhile, district leaders in Fort Wayne, Indiana plan to put a referendum on the ballot in November in order to raise money for weapons detection technology in schools. In Arkansas, Little Rock School District is in currently the process of installing weapon detectors. And the list of examples from just this month's news goes on.

The renewed commitment to increasing police presence and surveillance technologies in schools comes sanctioned by influential groups such as The Council of the Great City Schools (CGCS), an organization where PPS Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero is Chair-elect of the Executive Committee. In February 2022, The CGCS and the International Association of Chiefs of Police established a partnership, launching a task force "centered on identifying models for collaboration between local police and urban school districts to address the safety of students in urban areas throughout the United States." 

In January, CGCS authored a report that recommended Boston Public Schools rebuild relations with police. WBUR reported that the recommendations included "engaging with the Boston police commissioner to promote 'positive relationships' between police and students, as well as weighing the re-establishment of an internal police department."

As previously reported on this blog, it is well-documented that armed officers have an adverse effect on students of color, students from poverty, and students with disabilities, and have not been found effective in stopping or preventing school shootings.

As Boston.com reports:

"A 2018 report from education research non-profit WestEd found that 'there is currently very little rigorous evaluative research on the effects — in terms of school safety — of having a police presence in schools,' though the existing evidence to date 'fails to support a school safety effect.'

In 2020, the ACLU of Florida looked at school policing in the Sunshine State, which passed a law requiring officers to be stationed at all public schools following the 2018 Parkland school shooting.

'There was little consistent evidence that the presence of law enforcement decreased the number of behavioral incidents occurring, indicating that school-based law enforcement were not necessarily making schools safer,' the resulting report found.

A report from the University of Florida Education Policy Research Center, also from 2020, found that the use of law enforcement in schools may actually compromise student well-being without increasing school safety."

Regarding the effectiveness of the latest weapons detection systems, a brand new Intercept investigation entitled "Un-Alarmed: AI Tries (and Fails) to Detect Weapons in Schools" revealed the racket that ineffective artificial intelligence weapons detection technology has become in school districts attempting to prevent school shootings. The investigation found that "over 65 school districts have bought or tested artificial intelligence gun detection from a variety of companies since 2018, spending a total of over $45 million, much of it coming from public coffers."

Georgia Gee of the Intercept writes: 

"As school shootings proliferate across the country — there were 46 school shootings in 2022, more than in any year since at least 1999 — educators are increasingly turning to dodgy vendors who market misleading and ineffective technology. . . School districts nationwide. . . have spent millions on gun detection technology with little to no track record of preventing or stopping violence. . . 

'Private companies are preying on school districts’ worst fears and proposing the use of technology that’s not going to work,' said Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the Education Policy Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, or NYCLU, 'and may cause many more problems than it seeks to solve.'"

One of the most popular companies that sells AI weapons detection systems to school districts is Evolv. The image used in the district's Safety and Security Task Force Recommendations and included here is of an Evolv system. The Intercept investigation reveals that "Evolv, a publicly traded company since 2021, had doctored the results of their software testing."

The claims that companies selling this technology are making have not been substantiated. The systems have been found to be inefficient and inaccurate with a high number of false alarms. Furthermore, bias is still a factor with the interpretation of possible threat left up to the "consumer" aka district personnel who may target students based on their race.

There are other issues of concern with the deployment of this technology besides a potential racist impact on students documented already a decade ago with the use of metal detectors. AI weapons detection technology is new and districts install them often inexpensively because schools are used as testing grounds for these new tools.

As K-12 Dive reports, Kenneth Trump, president of consulting firm National School Safety and Security Services, cautions about making the investments into smart gun detection systems. He says:

"'Schools are the testing grounds and the new foundation for these companies to build their artificial intelligence. The systems get smarter as they are used,' Trump said. 'So those particularly on the front end of this in schools are going to fall prey to the gaps, the limitations, the snafus, the errors, the false positives, and their children and schools are being used to make the vendors’ AI software smarter.'"

The security-related investments PPS is hoping to make seem to be just for optics, to give the illusion of district management responding to the public's security concerns in light of heightened gun violence in Portland. But they are wrong because they funnel public tax dollars to private companies with technology unproven to be effective, as well as to the police whose presence in schools has adversely impacted the very groups the district is claiming to prioritize for support, namely BIPOC youth. Furthermore, this funding proposal is questionable because it does not require consent for students to participate in the testing of new technology.

According to the Intercept investigation, "there is little peer-reviewed research . .  showing that AI gun detection is effective at preventing shootings." As discussed previously on this blog, school resource officers have been found ineffective in preventing gun violence and problematic when it comes to their treatment of students of color, LGBTQ+ youth, and students with disabilities.

Instead, why not invest in the following proven approaches to violence prevention?

• Fund additional psychologists, social workers and counselors while ensuring a manageable caseload for these employees
• Invest in restorative justice specialists and training for students and staff
• Prioritize building strong, positive relationships between students and school staff
• Train peer mentors to de-escalate conflict
• Hire community intervention workers to work in schools
• Partner students with culturally responsive mentors
• Establish paid apprenticeship and internship programs that give youth opportunities to earn a living wage and lead to rewarding careers
• Offer youth creative and educational programs that build community, tap into students interests, and develop students’ skills