S. 5468 — Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act

This section sets forth congressional findings on the criminalization of students in schools over the last 50 years, including data showing that 55 percent of high school students attended a school with a police officer in 2017–2018 despite falling crime rates, that federal funding has placed more than 50,000 officers in schools since 1999, and that Black students face arrest rates more than twice their share of enrollment while students with disabilities account for 78 percent of restraints.

This section establishes the purpose of the Act to eliminate Federal funding for maintaining covered law enforcement officers in schools and to support local educational agencies that terminate contracts with law enforcement agencies or disband district police departments. It directs resources instead toward evidence-based, inclusive, racially and gender responsive, trauma-informed services and positive schoolwide systems.

This section defines terms for the Act, including a covered program as all operations of an elementary or secondary school, a local educational agency, or a Head Start program; a credible messenger as a mentor from the same community with shared lived experiences such as involvement in the legal or child welfare system or exclusionary school discipline; positive behavioral interventions and supports as a schoolwide evidence-based approach to improve school climate; a covered law enforcement officer as a state, tribal, or local officer assigned to or employed by a covered program; and trauma-informed services as an approach that recognizes trauma impacts and emphasizes safety and healing.

This section prohibits the appropriation or use of federal funds for hiring, maintaining, or training covered law enforcement officers in any capacity. It bars recipients of COPS grants from using those funds for covered law enforcement officers.

This section establishes a competitive grant program under which the Secretary of Education awards funds to local educational agencies to replace school-based law enforcement officers with counselors, psychologists, nurses, social workers, and other mental health and trauma-informed personnel and to implement evidence-based disciplinary policies that do not rely on the criminal justice system. It requires termination of existing police contracts at least 30 days before funds are received, bars new contracts or school police departments during the grant period, prioritizes districts that already ended such contracts or serve higher shares of economically disadvantaged students, mandates use of funds for specified staff and training, prohibits expenditures on surveillance equipment or arming personnel, and sets grant amounts according to student enrollment.