Group of students pushes defunding of Clark County school police

Students and school counselors gathered Wednesday afternoon to call on the School Board to defund the Clark County School District Police Department.

About a dozen Las Vegas Valley students stood outside Desert Pines High School, 3800 E. Harris Ave., to share their experiences with officers and to encourage the School Board to get rid of campus police. They argued the money should instead be used for resources such as college and mental health counselors.

The rally came ahead of the School Board meeting scheduled for Thursday.

Attempts to reach the Police Department were not immediately successful Wednesday evening.

Adam Allen, 18, said he graduated from Canyon Springs High School in 2019 and remembers the way school police were spread across campus, with more than a dozen officers at times.

“It made me feel like I was in a prison yard,” he said.

Allen is a first-generation college student and said he had to use YouTube videos to help him understand the college admission process because there were too few counselors on his campus. He said the money being used to fund campus police should go to more college counseling.

Rico Ocampo, the youth and program organizer for the Youth Power Project, said they “demand CCSD defund the school-to-prison pipeline,” which he said disproportionately affects minority students.

Clark County has about 220 school police personnel, according to the district’s 2018-19 budget. The district has 320,000 students and 40,000 employees at 360 schools.

Contact Sabrina Schnur at sschnur@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0278. Follow @sabrina_schnur on Twitter.