BPS backing away from pepper-spray idea, but city councilors want hearing anyway

Interim School Superintendent John McDonough plans to tell the School Committee tonight that he will not support a proposal to arm school police with a form of pepper spray.

In a statement released today, he said:

Our 75 school police officers are dedicated, talented and will do anything it takes to keep our schools safe. I think what we are hearing so far has persuaded me that pepper spray, no matter how well-developed the policy and no matter how well-crafted the training, and no matter their good intention - might serve to drive a wedge between our students and the school police who do a great job protecting them every day.

So in compliance with the collective bargaining agreement, at this time and until otherwise ordered, the Superintendent is directing the Chief of Safety Services to neither issue nor authorize the use of OC spray to School Police Officers within the Boston Public Schools.

Despite the news, City Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury) and Councilor Ayanna Pressley (at large) said they want to hold a hearing anyway to ensure the plan is really dead and that it does not come back.

"For me this makes no sense to introduce an agent that is only going to escalate a situation," Jackson said, noting that even DYS facilities don't use pepper spray, that school kids in his district already have elevated asthma rates and that reports of violence in Boston schools have declined in recent years.

"I do not want our schools to be a police state," Pressley said. She said arming school police - who do not carry guns - with the spray would erode trust among students and could even lead to harm to officers should an out-of-control student get ahold of their spray. She said a hearing would be important for the council to exercise its watchdog role and get absolute confirmation that pepper spray is off the table.

"This is simply an absurd idea," agreed Councilor Matt O'Malley (Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury). O'Malley said that in the close confines of a classroom or hallway, pepper spray could easily find its way into the eyes and lungs of kids having nothing to do with a situation that required its use.

School officials last month began a series of public meetings to gather public input on the idea, which would be allowed under a provision in the contract BPS signed with its school police officers in 2006.

McDonough said:

Very often, BPS has been criticized for coming to the community with a completed policy draft and asking for feedback a week or two before the School Committee is supposed to vote. We are trying to change this dynamic. When it comes to the concept of pepper spray, we have been very much in a listening mode.