Matthew Coutts, National Post
A program that places armed police officers in public schools will expand to 20 new locations when students return to class today, but the debate over whether the controversial strategy is appropriate continues to swirl.
The program was introduced to 30 schools as a pilot program last year, placing uniformed officers in hallways to combat schoolyard violence and a perceived disconnect between students and law-enforcement agencies.
When Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair announced the expanded list of schools in June, he said the first year of the "school resource officer" initiative had led to a reduction in crime. Still, some doubt the effectiveness, and appropriateness, of posting uniformed officers with sidearms in public schools.
At North York's Westview Collegiate, one of the schools new to the program, a parent committee group petitioned against posting an officer based on concerns over the stigma it would cause, requesting the officer be posted to the general community instead.
James Pasternak, school board trustee for York Centre, said he had similar concerns last year when a school in his riding, Downsview Secondary School, was included in the pilot project.
He said he was originally "reticent to have officers in the school when the plan was first announced" because he thought it would create an image that the schools were unsafe.
"It turned out to be a great program. The officers are very involved in outreach to teenagers and youth; they participate in some of the extracurricular programs as a coach or a mentor.... They are also a deterrent to many kinds of discipline problems within the school."
This year, both Downsview and nearby Northview Heights Secondary School will have officers posted in the schools.
Earlier this summer, the Toronto Police Accountability Coalition, a group organized by former Toronto mayor John Sewell, called for the end of the program on the grounds that there was no apparent impact on school crime.
But Josh Matlow, trustee for St. Paul's, supported the initiative and said the primary goal of the campaign is to improve the relationship between school-aged community members and police.
"This really is a program to introduce uniformed police officers to students and vice versa," Mr. Matlow said.
"This program, if successful, will build a relationship based on trust between police officers and students. I'd like to see students know that they can run toward our police rather than often feeling like they want to run away from them."
In Mr. Matlow's St. Paul's riding, Northern Secondary School will be one of the new schools to receive a full-time resource officer.
Last year, the school was offered a resource officer, but after consulting parents and students, Mr. Matlow said it felt a little too overwhelming.
The school had installed new cameras and implemented a lanyard program where students had to wear identification tags.
"They just felt it was too much to have a resource officer in the same year," he said.
Instead the officer was based out of a nearby police station and attended the school frequently. This year, he will move right in.
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