Four Ontario school board trustee candidates are calling for police officers to return to schools as concerns grow over violence, weapons, and the safety of students and staff.
The candidates running in Toronto, Ottawa, and York Region support restoring School Resource Officer programs, though their proposals range from regularly assigned officers to a more limited educational and preventative role.
Their calls follow a major development at the York Region District School Board, as trustees unanimously voted in favour of a motion for staff to work with York Regional Police and report back within six months on restoring the program.
Trustee Robert Kolosowski said removing the officers ended a consistent relationship between students, staff, and police.
Brandan Cescolini, a candidate for the York Region board, told Juno News that returning officers would improve safety while rebuilding trust between young people and police.
“Having officers regularly present in schools gives students the opportunity to interact with them in a positive and familiar environment, rather than only during an emergency or when something has gone wrong,” Cescolini said.
Officers should focus on education, prevention, and building relationships, he added.
“Safer schools are not just about responding to incidents,” he continued. “They are about prevention, trust and making sure every student feels safe and supported when they walk through the doors of their school.”
Fellow York Region candidate Dorit Smali supports a more clearly limited role centred on practical safety education.
“The goal would not be to have police handling normal student discipline,” Smali said. “Teachers and administrators should continue to manage school discipline.”
She said specially trained officers could teach students about road safety, substance-use prevention, online risks, fraud, personal safety, and the justice system.
Electric bicycles and scooters are an example of where police could improve school life.
“Rather than simply enforcing the rules after something goes wrong, I would like to see police working proactively with schools to educate students before an accident happens,” she said.
In Ottawa, candidate Shannon Boschy argued that removing regularly assigned officers increased the distance between police and school communities.
“A consistent point of contact for administration and a familiar officer to students means much more effective responses when police engagement is necessary,” Boschy told Juno News.
He said administrators must now call emergency services or a public police line when serious incidents occur, potentially increasing response times and leaving responding officers unfamiliar with the students and school.
Boschy said that Ministry of Education figures obtained through freedom-of-information legislation show reported violent incidents increased by 77 per cent between 2018–19 and 2023–24, reaching 4,424 incidents.
The figures show violence increased during the period in which several boards removed officers, but they don’t necessarily prove that the absence of police caused the increase.
Toronto District School Board trustee Weidong Pei, who is seeking re-election, offered the most detailed statistical case for reconsidering the policy.
An Ontario Auditor General report found that violent incidents at Toronto schools increased by 67 per cent between 2017–18 and 2022–23, rising from 244 to 407.
Pei said that the Toronto board’s 2017 review found concerns among some students but also substantial support for the program. Fifty-seven per cent of respondents said having an officer in their school made them feel safer.
“I think we need to listen to all sides,” Pei said. “We should take seriously the students and communities who had concerns about School Resource Officers, but we should also listen to the students, parents and staff who said that having an officer in their school made them feel safer.”
Pei expressed concern over tragic incidents involving students after the SRO program ended: Safiullah Khosrawi, Maahir Dosani, Jahiem Robinson, and Jefferson Peter Shardeley Guerrier. He stopped short of blaming the program’s removal for specific deaths or violent incidents.
“There are many factors involved, and we cannot know whether a School Resource Officer would have prevented a specific tragedy,” he said. “But when we see this level of violence, I believe we have a responsibility to ask whether our current approach to school safety is working well enough.”
Pei said officers should form part of a wider safety strategy involving teachers, administrators, mental health professionals, social workers and parents.
“School safety should not be about politics,” he said. “It should be about doing everything reasonably possible to keep our students and teachers safe.”
