Doug Erickson: Also, incidents occurring anywhere on or adjacent to a high school campus or across the street from the campus were captured in the data. So in a handful of cases, district officials said, the person arrested may have been an adult or a juvenile not currently enrolled in the district. Black individuals were … Continue reading A Look At Police Calls To Madison Schools →

Molly Beck: The number and type of crimes committed at high schools, at their events and on school buses would be printed on the state’s school report cards under a bill being circulated this week. Any public high school, public charter high school or private voucher high school would be required to track reports of … Continue reading Deja Vu on School Police Calls: School crime stats would be included in state report cards under GOP bill →

Sarah Holder: On June 7, members of the Minneapolis city council announced something that just weeks ago might have seemed politically untenable: They would disband the Minneapolis Police Department entirely, and start over with a community-led public safety system. Though the mayor reaffirmed on Monday that he wouldn’t support the dissolution of the force, the … Continue reading The Cities Taking Up Calls to Defund the Police →

George Joseph: In hours of secretly recorded telephone conversations, police officers in Mount Vernon, New York, reveal widespread corruption, brutality and other misconduct in the troubled Westchester County city just north of the Bronx. Caught on tape by a whistleblower cop, the officers said they witnessed or took part in alarming acts of police misconduct, … Continue reading Civics: The Mount Vernon Police Tapes: In Secretly Recorded Phone Calls, Officers Say Innocent People Were Framed →

Chris Rickert: Some Madison schools will participate next year in a Black Lives Matter event that features a call to “fund counselors, not cops” — despite the School Board’s decision this week to keep police officers in the Madison School District’s four main high schools. Hamilton Middle School said in an email to community members … Continue reading Some Madison schools sign on to Black Lives Matter event that calls for dumping police →

Ralph Haurwitz: A comprehensive safety review after the slaying of a student at the University of Texas recommends that UT hire more police officers and security guards, improve lighting and tighten controls on nighttime access to campus buildings, among other improvements, officials said Wednesday. The report by the Texas Department of Public Safety also calls … Continue reading UT security review calls for more police, fewer homeless on campus →

Nader Issa & Sarah Karp: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says he supports ending the controversial Chicago Public Schools program that puts uniformed police officers in dozens of high schools. The mayor said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ on Tuesday that he will give the Board of Education the green light to … Continue reading Johnson says he supports removal of police officers from Chicago schools →

Jim Piwowarczyk & Jessica McBride I have deep concerns for the future of this department and its ability to retain the most valuable resource it doesn’t know it has: the experienced and proficient officers and immediate supervisors who serve the community every day by responding to calls for service. You know who you are, you … Continue reading ‘Farewell MPD’: A Madison Police Officer’s Epic Letter to Colleagues →

Dave Cieslewicz: That’s an average of about 3.5 times a day or almost once per day to each school. According to a story in this morning’s Wisconsin State Journal the breakdown is 220 calls to East, 158 to La Follette, 170 to Memorial and 92 to West. In addition to the raw numbers there were … Continue reading “In the last school year Madison police were called 640 times to Madison’s four high schools” →

Virginia Gewin On 4 March, Christopher Jackson tweeted that he was leaving the University of Manchester, UK, to work at Jacobs, a scientific-consulting firm with headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Jackson, a prominent geoscientist, is part of a growing wave of researchers using the #leavingacademia hashtag when announcing their resignations from higher education. Like many, his … Continue reading A wave of departures, many of them by mid-career scientists, calls attention to widespread discontent in universities. →

Rhonda Foxx: “I thought that at some point in time, this might be an inevitability when the district decided to move away from having school resource officers,” said Mike Koval, Madison’s former Police Chief. Koval is talking about the school district’s decision to remove resource officers from its four high schools last year. “I think … Continue reading School violence prompts calls for resource officers to be returned to Madison safety plan →

Evan Symon: On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board of Education announced a sweeping overhaul of school security, voting to fire 133 Los Angeles School Police Department (LASPD) members in favor of school “climate coaches”. The decision to cut a third of the LASPD force will leave the school district with 211 … Continue reading Los Angeles School Board to Fire 133 Police Officers in Favor of ‘Climate Coach’ Program →

Ben Farrell, Lauren Henning and Anna Walters: Editor’s note: This story came about through a partnership between the Cap Times, Local Voices Network and a University of Wisconsin-Madison journalism class. Students analyzed the Cap Times People’s Agenda and chose to report on non-police solutions for community issues, one of the topics readers identified as a priority. Specifically, the student … Continue reading Police-free schools: Security staff step up as Madison strategizes safety →

Isabelle Sarraf and James Pollard: Standing outside University President Morton Schapiro’s house, students led by Northwestern Community Not Cops, a campaign demanding the abolition of University Police, called for Schapiro’s resignation Monday night. Several hours earlier, Schapiro sent an email saying NU has no intentions to abolish UP after a week of ongoing protests led … Continue reading NU Community Not Cops calls on President Schapiro to resign following his condemnation of abolitionist protests →

CBC: Police forces across Ontario engaged in broad, illegal searches of a now-defunct COVID-19 database, two civil rights groups alleged Wednesday, claiming the use of the portal violated individual privacy rights for months. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and the Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) said in separate reports that many services used the database to look at COVID-19 … Continue reading Ontario police used COVID-19 database illegally, civil rights groups find →

Drew Harwell: The doorbell-camera company Ring has quietly forged video-sharing partnerships with more than 400 police forces across the United States, granting them access to homeowners’ camera footage and a powerful role in what the company calls America’s “new neighborhood watch.” The partnerships let police automatically request the video recorded by homeowners’ cameras within a … Continue reading Doorbell-camera firm Ring has partnered with 400 police forces, extending surveillance reach →

Kanis Leung: A leading union has called on Hong Kong teachers to skip classes for the rest of the week after street clashes between police and residents protesting the government’s extradition bill. The Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union (PTU), the city’s biggest pro-democracy union for educators, announced it would boycott classes on Thursday and Friday. … Continue reading Leading Hong Kong teachers’ union calls for class boycott after clashes over extradition bill →

Darwin BondGraham: Last fall, Fremont’s city council also changed their police department’s records retention policy, reducing the amount of time that investigative files of officer-involved shootings must be saved from 25 years down to 10. (Darwin BondGraham/KQED) Last year, while state lawmakers were considering a landmark bill to open up previously confidential police misconduct records … Continue reading Civics: Fremont Destroyed Decades of Police Misconduct Records Shortly Before Transparency Law Took Effect →

Negassi Tesfamichael: In an open letter to the community released Thursday morning, Madison School District Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham acknowledged that the district “cannot be silent” on issues of racial justice. The letter comes eight days after media reports surfaced regarding an alleged assault at Whitehorse Middle School. In that incident, which is still being investigated … Continue reading Madison schools superintendent pens open letter following Whitehorse incident, calls for action →

Sam Biddle: On March 17, 2016, Ring CEO Jamie Siminoff emailed out a company-wide declaration of war. The message, under the subject line “Going to war,” made two things clear to the home surveillance company’s hundreds of employees: Everyone was getting free camouflage-print T-shirts (“They look awesome,” assured Siminoff), and the company’s new mission was … Continue reading Civics: Amazon’s Home Surveillance Chief Declared War on “Dirtbag Criminals” as Company Got Closer to Police →

Logan Wroge: Throughout the public comment period, several people said the presence of police officers inside school can negatively affect students of color and feeds into the “school-to-prison pipeline.” “Ain’t no amount of training, ain’t no amount of special certificates is going to matter when it comes to black and brown kids, because (police officers) … Continue reading Madison’s K-12 Governance Non Diversity: Police in Schools Meeting →

Logan Wroge: A Madison man has been arrested and banned from Shorewood Hills Elementary School after he handed a piece of cardboard with “gun” written on it to a teacher Thursday morning. Police said there was no danger to the school and didn’t speculate on what the parent’s motive was. Shorewood Hills Police Chief Aaron … Continue reading Parent hands cardboard with ‘gun’ written on it to teacher at Madison school, police say →

Chris Rickert: But Madison policy-makers might find they can help reduce police shootings if they spend more time urging their constituents to follow existing rules than by trying to force police to change theirs. Related: Police Calls: Madison Schools 1996-2006.

Megha Rajagopalan: This is a city where growing a beard can get you reported to the police. So can inviting too many people to your wedding, or naming your child Muhammad or Medina. Driving or taking a bus to a neighboring town, you’d hit checkpoints where armed police officers might search your phone for banned … Continue reading This Is What A 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like →

Todd Richmond: Police would have to notify school administrators whenever they arrest a student for a violent crime and teachers could end their contracts without penalty if students attack them under a Republican bill that would relax juvenile criminal record confidentiality. The bill would also allow teachers to remove a student from a classroom for … Continue reading Civics:GOP bill would force police to share student records →

Sam Biddle: Apple promises that your iMessage conversations are safe and out of reach from anyone other than you and your friends. But according to a document obtained by The Intercept, your blue-bubbled texts do leave behind a log of which phone numbers you are poised to contact and shares this (and other potentially sensitive … Continue reading Civics: Apple Logs Your iMessage Contacts — and May Share Them With Police →

Sam Biddle A confidential, 120-page catalogue of spy equipment, originating from British defense firm Cobham and circulated to U.S. law enforcement, touts gear that can intercept wireless calls and text messages, locate people via their mobile phones, and jam cellular communications in a particular area. The catalogue was obtained by The Intercept as part of … Continue reading Civics: Leaked Catalogue Reveals a Vast Array of Military Spy Gear Offered to U.S. Police →

Matthew DeFour:

The challenger in the spring election for state superintendent of public instruction is calling on school districts to post volunteer security guards in schools to protect student safety.
Rep. Don Pridemore, R-Erin, issued a statement Thursday saying school boards “should be given the freedom to hire a competent, well-trained school official or employee who is experienced with applying force whenever force is required.” He said retired or on-duty police officers would be preferred.
Many school districts already contract with local police departments to assign police officers to schools. Madison has a police officer assigned to each of its high schools.
Pridemore said the most cost-effective approach would be for districts to ask qualified, retired volunteers from their community to patrol.

Madison School District PDF:

1. Both out-of-school and in-school suspensions were less common in 2012-13 than in 2011-12. In particular, the reduction in out-of-school suspensions led to nearly 600 fewer days of instruction lost to suspensions.
2. Large disproportionalities exist between suspensions and demographics in MMSD. For example, African- American students make up 19% of MMSD’s population but received 60% of out-of-school suspensions. Low- income students make up 48% of MMSD but received 85% of suspensions.
3. There are large disparities in discipline practices between schools. For example, among elementary schools, out-of-school suspensions ranged between 0 and 98, and behavior referrals ranged between 25 and 2,319.

Related: Madison School Board discipline presentation (PDF) and a Wisconsin DPI FAQ (PDF).
Related: Gangs & School Violence Forum (2005) audio & video and Police calls to and near Madison schools: 1996-2006.

Doug Erickson:

Public schools in Dane County poured nearly $3 million into security upgrades over the summer, continuing a trend that began nearly 15 years ago with a school shooting in Columbine, Colo.
Almost all school buildings in the county will have secure entrances when classes begin this week, even in the small, rural districts of Belleville and Wisconsin Heights. All outside doors in both districts will be locked after the start of the school day, a first for both districts but a standard precaution now across much of the county.
Several districts, including Sun Prairie, added a layer of security beyond an intercom system, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to reconfigure entrances so that visitors walk directly into an office or a locked vestibule before being let into any other part of the school. At two schools in

Related: Police calls near Madison High Schools: 1996-2006.

Denise Buffa:

Efforts to keep Connecticut schools safe have escalated since a lone gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last year and shot to death 20 first-graders and six adults. But not all threats to school safety come from outside the building.
A Courant examination of state records, coming in Sunday’s Hartford Courant and on courant.com, revealed that hundreds of Connecticut public schools reported incidents involving weapons in the 2011-2012 school year. The weapons included at least 16 handguns and at least two rifles or shotguns.
Sunday’s report will include an online database of every school that reported an incident involving a weapon and a list of weapons reported at each school.
In the 2011-2012 school year, more than 400 knives were confiscated. There were also at least 37 box cutters, 20 razor blades, 17 switchblades, eight swords or machetes and six stun guns.

Related: Police calls near Madison High Schools: 1996-2006.

Wisconsin Supreme Court 120K PDF, via a kind Chan Stroman-Roll email:

This case is not about a direct denial of public access to records, but the issue in the present case directly implicates the accessibility of government records. The greater the fee imposed on a requester of a public record, the less likely the requester will be willing and able to successfully make a record request. Thus, the imposition of fees limits and may even serve to deny access to government records. In interpreting the Public Records Law, we must be cognizant that the legislature’s preference is for “complete public access” and that the imposition of costs, as a practical matter, inhibits access.

A number of open records requests have been published here, including 1996-2006 Police calls and a school district land purchase that lacked competitive offers.
Related: The Sunlight Foundation.

Channel3000.com, via a kind reader:

A teenager said she was attacked and beaten by three classmates near East High School.
Two 16-year-old girls and a 15-year-old girl were arrested last week in connection with the assault.
The victim, Alana Krupp, 15, said she knows the girls involved but maintains she wasn’t talking trash about them.
The incident happened last Wednesday at the intersection of Fourth Street and Winnebago Street a block south of East High School.
Krupp arrived at the bus stop like any other day, but in a few seconds an otherwise OK freshman year at East High School was turned upside down when she was confronted by the girls.
“She said, ‘I wanted to fight you.’ And I said, ‘I’m not going to fight you, because there’s no point in it. I never did anything to you,'” Krupp said. “She hit me in the face, and I got pulled down to the ground by my hair.”

Related: Madison police calls near local high schools: 1996-2006.

WiSJ: Madison police last week unveiled its 2023 crime numbers, which showed that violent crimes like robberies declined from the previous year. But some crimes, including homicides, went up.  So it safer in Madison than it was a decade ago? Here are the numbers since 2013, broken down by crime. Homicides in Madison There were … Continue reading Lates Madison crime data →

Mike Antonucci: The Center for Public Integrity has produced a lot of work about the issue of police in schools. This latest effort adds a new perspective. While focused on the misdeeds of cops in classroom settings, it also shines a light on those schools, districts and states that call in the police a disproportionate number of … Continue reading a State-by-State Breakdown of How Often Schools Call the Cops →

Scott Girard: The Madison Metropolitan School District is considering an update to its policy on restraint and seclusion of students after a state law change earlier this year. Staff presented the proposal to the School Board Monday. Board members had a few questions about training and definitions, but generally supported the changes. They are expected to vote … Continue reading Madison School District considers update to restraint and seclusion policy →

Scott Girard: Two weeks ago, the committee was set to include 14 people and not have the exclusionary practices bullet among its charges. But board member Ali Muldrow asked that the committee include disproportionality in its discussions, and other board members asked that the membership be expanded to ensure all high schools were well-represented. According … Continue reading Madison School Board approves members, plans for safety and security committee →

Scott Girard: A new report from the Madison Metropolitan School District shows that police interactions with students continued recent trends in 2019-20, with few citations and arrests but Black students making up a disproportionate number of those. While the data come with caveats — most notably that the in-person school year was three months shorter than … Continue reading New report shows arrests, citations at MMSD high schools in 2019-20 remain disproportionate →

Will Flanders: At Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD), there exist two distinct school systems. Despite its economic growth, low-income families in Madison are more likely to stay poor for their entire lives. While 60% of white students at MMSD are proficient or higher on the Forward exam, only 9.8% of African Americans are proficient. This … Continue reading Two Madisons: The Education and Opportunity Gap in Wisconsin’s Fastest Growing City →

Jonathan Peters: Colorado journalists on the crime beat are increasingly in the dark. More than two-dozen law enforcement agencies statewide have encrypted all of their radio communications, not just those related to surveillance or a special or sensitive operation. That means journalists and others can’t listen in using a scanner or smartphone app to learn … Continue reading Civics: Encryption efforts in Colorado challenge crime reporters, transparency →

Amanda Ripley: The lesson for journalists (or anyone) working amidst intractable conflict: complicate the narrative. First, complexity leads to a fuller, more accurate story. Secondly, it boosts the odds that your work will matter — particularly if it is about a polarizing issue. When people encounter complexity, they become more curious and less closed off to new … Continue reading In favor of deep (and complex) reporting →

David Blaska: Bad Language + Bad Manners = Bad Policyat the Madison school board’s ad hoc committee on educational resource officers Monday afternoon Who, exactly, is demanding cops out of schools? I noted that the crowd seated in Room 103 were pretty much the same mob who shouted down the Dane County Board of Supervisors … Continue reading One citizen speaks for keeping cops in schools, gets race-baited by school board member; Part #1 →

Karen Rivedal: While staff chose to hold some sort of commemoration, the walkout was planned by a small committee of students over the past two days, eighth grade social studies teacher Tracy Hamm Warnecke said. “Middle schools are very aware of what’s going on in the world around them, especially eighth graders,” Hamm Warnecke said. … Continue reading Thousands of Madison-area students walk out for gun control, school safety →

Annalisa Merelli: In 1982, John Beck—a strategy advisor and former business professor at Harvard and UCLA—was a 22-year-old Harvard student working on his thesis on juvenile crime in Japan. In the 1980s, Japan had seen an uncharacteristic increase in juvenile crime, which was associated with bōsōzoku (暴走族), or biker gangs. These groups, Beck says, comprised … Continue reading A 1980s study on juvenile crime in Japan sheds light on American gun culture →

Michael Miller: The old minivan appeared near the school on a Tuesday morning, its Illinois plates the only thing out of place in the blue-collar suburbs of central Long Island. But as backpack-toting teenagers passed by on their way to Brentwood High, the van’s doors suddenly swung open. Out sprang members of the violent street … Continue reading MS-13 is ‘taking over the school,’ one teen warned before she was killed →

Amber Walker: Out-of-school suspensions are up in the Madison Metropolitan School District at this point in the school year compared to last year. On Monday, the Madison School Board received its midyear update on the Behavior Education Plan. District data shows 1,122 suspensions across the district so far this school year, compared to 892 at … Continue reading Data show suspensions up in Madison schools for first semester →

Karen Rivedal: Police also were sent to West on Feb. 19, when a small group of students “engaged in a loud verbal altercation” in front of the school library, Boran said, even as the “vast majority” of students acted appropriately. Disturbances like that happen dozens of times a year across the four high schools, according … Continue reading Security upgrades, behavior fixes pledged by Madison School District →

Amber Walker: Several dozen parents, students and community members from La Follette High School showed up to Monday evening’s Madison School Board meeting to address mounting concerns about safety at the school. The outcry follows the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, earlier this month. In the last two weeks, Madison … Continue reading Madison La Follette parents urge Madison School Board to act on school safety →

Lisa Speckhard Pasque: In an often passionate debate that can become a battle between extremes, Robert Butler, associate executive director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, doesn’t think there’s a top-down, one-size-fits-all solution. On an episode of the Sunday political talk show “UpFront with Mike Gousha,” Butler suggested asking local police, liability carriers and … Continue reading Wisconsin Association of School Boards: Conversation about arming teachers should start at local level →

Mitch Henck. Related: Police calls, Madison Schools 1996-2006 and Gangs and School violence forum.

Bob Norman: The education plan shows that, even as Cruz was making progress at the Cross Creek School for emotionally and behaviorally disabled students in late 2015, but that he was known by administrators to have an obsession with guns and violence. Here are some passages from the plan: “Nikolas at times, will be distracted … Continue reading School board knew of Parkland shooter’s obsession with guns and violence, documents show →

David Blaska: From what we can determine, the misbehaving students were not peacefully protesting for gun control, social justice, or better cafeteria food. They were just fighting. Let’s start with Chief Koval’s bare bones police blotter: MIDTOWN: Disturbance – 12:12 p.m. MPD Educational Resource Officer (ERO) requested back-up to assist with a large disturbance in … Continue reading Three Madison high schools erupt in chaos Monday noon →

Amber Walker: Madison School Board member Kate Toews had a suggestion for the district at Monday night’s board meeting: an interior lock on every classroom door. Toews’ idea came towards the end of a board discussion about the 2018-2019 school district budget. Toews said the Madison Metropolitan School District should install locks on all classrooms … Continue reading Madison School Board member Kate Toews wants interior locks on every MMSD classroom doorway →

Logan Wroge: Storch said, “We noticed behavior that (led) us to search the belongings of two students” that turned up individual BB guns on school property. The high school’s educational resource officer, a Madison police officer dedicated to each of the city’s four high schools, was notified, and the students were taken to offices, according … Continue reading Two students found with BB guns at La Follette High School, principal says →

Washington Post Editorial (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Post): AFTER POST reporters raised questions about the accuracy of suspension rates in some D.C. public schools, a warning went out to principals. “Inappropriate, unprofessional and fraudulent” was how the system’s instructional superintendent described failure to accurately record students barred from classes. It’s good that such … Continue reading Why are some D.C. schools underreporting student suspensions? →

Jason Joyce: “Students in the alternative program have their classes on the third floor, separate from the elementary students,” said Rachel Strauch Nelson in an email. “I would note that we have already been considering other possible locations for these programs as our district works to strengthen our alternative program options.” Strauch Nelson added that … Continue reading Madison high school student arrested for having a loaded gun at Lapham Elementary →

Pat Schneider: “Usually the first quarter is a honeymoon period when students are excited to be in school and behaviors are good. So when things were already deteriorating rapidly, it was a sign to me that this was not going in a good direction,” said Bush, 50, who has taught at Jefferson Middle School on … Continue reading Madison Schools’ Discipline Policies →

Joseph Cox: The FBI investigated a man who allegedly posed as a police officer in emails and phone calls to trick Verizon to hand over phone data belonging to a specific person that the suspect met on the dating section of porn site xHamster, according to a newly unsealed court record. Despite the relatively unconvincing … Continue reading Verizon Gave Phone Data to Armed Stalker Who Posed as Cop Over Email →

EFF Google announced this week that it will be making several important changes to the way it handles users’ “Location History” data. These changes would appear to make it much more difficult—if not impossible—for Google to provide mass location data in response to a geofence warrant, a change we’ve been askingGoogle to implement for years. Geofence warrants require a … Continue reading Geofence Warrants →