Students attending public schools in South Simcoe may have more chances to rub elbows with local police.
After meeting with John Dance, director of education for the Simcoe County District School Board (SCDSB) on Feb. 14, South Simcoe Police Service Chief John Van Dyke revealed officers “are back in the schools now on a limited basis,” during his monthly verbal update to the police services board on March 19.
While officers are still not permitted to provide police-led programming such as Be the Real You (BTRU) — the service’s modern replacement for older programs like Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) — the chief explained officers will have “a foot in the door” and be permitted to visit schools and provide the following programs and services to students:
- Lockdown practices
- Safety patrol training
- Bicycle and traffic safety
- Digital safety presentations
- Presentations to secondary school law classes
- Participation in charity- and career-focused events
“It’s very positive,” Van Dyke said in an interview after the meeting. “Would we like to be teaching the BTRU program? One hundred per cent, but it’s a good start and our officers will have interaction with our students, which is a good thing.”
There was no mention of any change to the board's policies regarding police in schools during the SCDSB program standing committee meeting on March 20.
Questions sent to the school board about why Dance decided to allow officers to return to schools, whether the decision is board-wide or specific to South Simcoe or whether the decision was influenced by letters asking for the return from the councils of Bradford West Gwillimbury, Wasaga Beach, Adjala-Tosorontio and Simcoe County, were not directly answered.
However, Sarah Kekewich, manager of communications for the board, confirmed the list of permitted police programs and services in schools and explained both Dance and Scott Young, superintendent of education for Area B (which does not include South Simcoe), “have been meeting with police chiefs across the county to discuss this important partnership and the police/school board protocol.”
While “the SCDSB will continue to welcome police in schools,” on this limited basis, Kekewich reiterated that police-led programming such as BTRU “have been discontinued,” because board resources “have been dedicated to the delivery of this content,” including through their mental health and well-being as well as the student achievement departments.
“Police-led programs that were paused during the (COVID-19) pandemic were assessed and determined to be duplications of school programs,” she said.
Student resource officers (SROs) and police-led programming were cancelled by both the public and Catholic school boards in the spring of 2023.
Both boards claimed the programs had been put on hold during the pandemic, with the public board saying that began for the 2021-22 school year. That was only a few months after presentations from two different parent groups in June 2021 calling for the dissolution of police programs in schools.
More recently, the group Policing-Free Schools wrote a letter to trustees of the public board in support of the decision to cancel regular police programming.
While the South Simcoe community resource officers have since redeployed to other areas, Insp. Henry Geoffroy confirmed during the January police services board meeting that re-implementing the SROs or programming would not have a negative financial impact on the department.
On the contrary, Geoffroy suspected that pivoting them back would actually help save the service resources in the long-term, thanks to the pro-active effect of having police in schools.
— With files from Jessica Owen
