Comments added by Home Education Funding Alberta
Written by Shaoni Das
Photo: Urban Institute
She believes refugee students are violent.
An Edmonton school official didn't hold back in the latest board meeting. On Tuesday, June 24, an Edmonton Public School Board trustee named Cheryl Johner discussed police presence in local schools.
She went on to say that kids need protection from refugee students.
The public Zoom meeting took place over eight hours and streamed live on YouTube. You can skip forward to the eight-hour mark to see the specific comments.
Cheryl Johner said, "It's a very important topic we're discussing at the moment."
"My mind goes to the number of refugee students that come into our district that are from war-torn countries, that have never known school before arriving here. All they've known is violence," she said. "When those students sometimes enter our schools, they can be violent there as well."
Johner said that the safety of students is extremely important and that students should "feel safe as they go to their own schools."
She said that's when police presence becomes important. "The officers act as a deterrent. They can respond quickly to escalate situations when needed."
Other than that discussion,
the meeting mostly addressed the need for the Student Resource Officer (SRO) program.
According to the Edmonton Journal, this program has nearly 30 official officers stationed at various schools across the city of Edmonton. The program has been around for longer than 40 years.
The board members weighed in on whether they want to keep or suspend the program. Johner said that she agrees with the board's chair, Trisha Estabrooks, that there isn't enough evidence to support the suspension of the SRO program.
"I just really feel it's not evidence-based," said Johner. "I really encourage my colleagues to consider not voting for this notion because again, in a court of law, you're innocent until proven guilty."
Johner concluded her remarks by touching upon racism.
"I know there is racism but I just feel that this program really does a lot of benefit. It's not all bad, nobody is created equal," she stated.
She added that some SRO officers are good and others are not. But they have carried out the process to determine that there is value, the trustee said.
The Edmonton Journal explained that the program initially popped up in schools over worries that there was drug use in the schools.
Black Lives Matter Edmonton has urged the City of Edmonton to remove police presence from local schools. This was included as one of their requests in their plea to defund the Edmonton Police Service.
Narcity has reached out to the Edmonton Public School Board for comment and we will update this article when we receive a response.
This article was taken from the following link (please click the link to see the video clip):
From this article you can clearly see the truth of what life is like in Public Schools:
-Many Refugee students are dangerous and other students need protection from them... (all students have a right to feel safe when attending school)
-Racism is present in schools...(which only leads to segregation and violence)
-There are currently over 30 Student Resource Officers (SROs) stationed in Edmonton schools... (to deter crime and violence)
-The SRO program has been around for over 40 years... (this has probably costed tax payers millions of dollars over the years!)
-The SRO program was initially put into place over the concern of drugs being used in schools... (drugs in schools?! Shouldn't our schools be used strictly for learning and educating purposes?)
-You may be thinking, well maybe give more funding for these refugee students to be better integrated into the schools. But, did you know they already receive special Refugee grants on top of all the Public School funding amounts?
Clearly, the more funding that goes towards Public Education, the less improvement in students' education.
What is the alternative? Home Education is the alternative because it promotes safe and healthy learning, which is why the government should increase the funding amounts in the Home Education Grant.
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