Philadelphia has seen pivotal moments in the Defunding of the Police and Black Lives Matter movements in schools. Since Philadelphia is the poorest large city, the public school system has faced many challenges with how to best approach public school funding and who to hear from in terms of education stakeholders (UrbEd, 2020). In Pennsylvania and Philadelphia, there has been an increase in the numbers of students arrested and how many officers are in schools making PA the state with one of the highest student arrest rates in the country (Police and Pennsylvania Schools, 2019). Pennsylvania ranks third in the country for Latinx girl student arrests, second for Latinx student arrects, second for Black student arrects, and third for disabled student arrests (Police and Pennsylvania Schools, 2019). They have also seen a recent incident of assault from a student officer that is exposing the problems of the current system (Risher and Gibson, 2016). The catalyst for making change are students, which can be seen after a large Nationwide Walkout on gun violence in 2018. Students want their voices heard and protected (DiFilippo, 2018). Students hope to change the zero tolerance policy to a restorative justice program, which has resulted in the number of arrests reduced by half in schools that follow this program instead of student officers and policing (Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Police School Diversion Program, 2020). 

One of the most remarkable problems in the Philadelphia school district is that 86% of the district is made up of BIPOC students (Goldstein et al., 2019), while only 20% of teachers are Black (Anderson and Cohen, 2017). Black students and Black educators are being disproportionately affected by funding cuts, school closures, and disciplinary practices. For a short period, concerns from students, teachers, and communities of racism in schools were heard and the school district reduced half of the number of suspendable infractions and started a restorative justice program (Risher and Gibson, 2016). However, these successes were rolled back and progress has been slowed (Risher and Gibson, 2016). In 2014, the city started a Philadelphia Police School Diversion Program in order to address some of the issues that the research has shown (Evaluation of the Pennsylvania Police School Diversion Program, 2020). The program was built to enable students with school offenses to find preventative and intervention needs instead of pushing them down the path to the justice system (Goldstein et al., 2019). They wanted to recognize adolescent misbehavior as part of being a growing student and person (Goldstein et al., 2019). While the program is seeking to reduce the number of student arrests, it does not address the racial disparities in disciplinary practices (Goldstein et al., 2019). It is a great start and with additional effort by community organizing and stakeholder voices, we may see permanent changes in how schools are kept safe.