Dive Brief:
- Beginning during the 2017-18 school year, Illinois school districts will have to add lessons about how to behave during traffic stops to driver’s education classes, and a Texas senator has proposed a similar bill.
- District Administration reports these lessons are meant to prevent police interactions from escalating to life-threatening situations, and many organizations — including law enforcement officer associations, the American Civil Liberties Union and bar associations — have long visited schools to prepare students in similar ways.
- Students are counseled to stay calm, vocalize their plan to exercise their right to stay silent, explain they do not approve of searches of their vehicle (but avoid interfering with any subsequent search), refrain from cursing and keep their hands off of cops.
Dive Insight:
Schools have long been asked to do much more than prepare students academically, and these types of police interaction trainings are an example of that. Not only are schools encouraged to provide wraparound services that help students overcome barriers to learning like poverty, violence, hunger and homelessness, they are held accountable for academic progress on standardized tests. Now it seems they are being asked to help prevent abuse from arguably dysfunctional police departments.
It can certainly benefit students to learn their rights when they come into contact with police. They should know they have a right to remain silent and refuse a search, but these lessons, especially when directed at black and Latino students who are disproportionately represented in police stops, are about more than simply knowing their rights. Schools cannot teach these lessons without acknowledging their need comes from a dysfunctional system that is, on many objective measures, biased against them.
