“By the very nature of the system of policing in this country, there is a culture clash between policing and schools, Police enforce the criminal codes; schools are supposed to be there to nurture young people.”
—-By Alliyah Logan

Our city wide Youth Council is made up of student Allies and Delegates from across NYC's districts. Led by student Committee Leads, young people meet monthly to learn about the issues, share their experiences, build projects, take action, and advocate for solutions together. Mike Domingue, a student who’s working with Trellis, had the opportunity to join one of their meetings. According to him, according to his report, it was an extraordinary experience to hear and interact with the youth. Over policing is an issue that major predominantly black and brown schools face daily and it is an issue that needs to be resolved. Read Mike's thoughts as he explains and provides reasons to his claim.

While interacting and participating in the Integrate NYC youth council meeting it gave me a clear perspective on how minority communities are being affected by policing at schools and also how there is more strict enforcement in the minority schools compared to a white school. Several examples are the issue of having to go through metal detectors everyday, police constantly surveying the school and security cameras. This creates a sense of anger because why do the minority schools have to go through this and not schools that are more financially stable and have a majority of white students. It is like the minority schools are viewed as a threat and in the process there are more stricter policies directed to them. This is completely wrong because it creates a negative narrative that the students in the minority schools are already criminals in the eyes of the Department Of Education. One of the core things that was talked in the meeting was defunding the police and start funding the schools more. The police department is getting funded billions of dollars. This is something that needs to stop. Too many schools have a lack of resources such as books, different types of classes available or any sort of electronics available for students. This makes it very hard for students to be prepared for major tests and other stuff and it creates a lot of pressure on them to be successful. I believe what would be best is to cut all police funding by a half and spread it to minority schools that are not receiving enough resources.

—By Mike Domingue