Student research aims to help make classrooms safe

Arches, Students

Puget Sound student Ruthy McBride ’22 researches restorative justice and policing practices in public schools

Ruthy McBride ’22 is studying a topic that’s controversial in the education community: the role of police in schools.

McBride, a politics and government major and African American studies and economics minor, grew up in Los Angeles, where police had a significant presence in the schools. “You have it in these very small ways in elementary and middle school, and then I went to a giant high school that was majority Latinx. Backpack checks were a normal thing, random locker checks. Sometimes they’d bring in a drug-sniffing dog to go through the halls and sniff the lockers.” McBride, who suffers from migraines, needed to keep a doctor’s note in her backpack along with her bottle of Excedrin, or else she risked a reprimand or even detention.

McBride spent last summer researching the role of police in public schools, with hopes of identifying alternatives to the discipline practices currently in place. Working alongside religion, spirituality, and society professor Suzanne Holland, McBride traced the history of police officers in schools from its beginnings during the war on drugs in the late 1960s and 1970s through the start of the 21st century, noting how the subsequent wars on poverty and crime, and response to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, continued to reinforce the practice.

The research project conducted by Ruthy McBride ’22 had two goals: to draft a policy removing police officers from schools and to create new standards for teachers that outline how best to educate students of different backgrounds.

“In those 30 or 40 years between Nixon’s war on drugs and 2001, there was a big push for policing in all areas of life,” McBride says. “You see police entering more of the private sector—workplaces through drug testing, for example. After the 1999 Columbine school shooting, there was a national push toward zero-tolerance policies and an increase in school resource officers in public schools.”

McBride’s exploration found multiple studies pointing to inequities in the system: Specifically, students of color and students with disabilities are disproportionately referred to law enforcement and are more likely to be arrested at school. Last spring, the Brookings Institution published a report stating that school police officers fuel what many call the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Ruthy McBride ’22

“Schools are where children learn how to view the world around them—and also where they learn how the world views them.”

McBride also learned about another trend: In the past decade, some school districts have moved away from having a police presence on school grounds and in school buildings.

“You’re starting to see educators realizing how policing and surveillance in schools affects children,” she says. The trend is happening primarily in smaller school districts, she says, and so far hasn’t gained momentum on a national level.

More recently, McBride learned that Tacoma Public Schools recently changed its policies: Two police officers are now on call, rather than physically on campus—though 25 unarmed “safety officers” remain. For her senior thesis, McBride hopes to interview Tacoma administrators, teachers, and parents to learn more about how the change came about and how it’s affecting student performance.

McBride's interest in the topic of law enforcement in public schools goes back to her own experience as a public school student in L.A., where her schools district had its own police department.

Her overall aim is to ensure that students are treated fairly and equitably. “I’m a big believer in education making the world a better place,” she says. “Schools are where children learn how to view the world around them—and also where they learn how the world views them. If we make education more equitable in the way that we socialize children, we can foster a better generation and keep moving in the right direction.”