CPS Workers Are Now Being Stationed in Our Schools

Many of you reading this probably remember a time when seeing a school resource officer was a rare occurrence in public schools. It was one of those situations that was mainly reserved for crime ridden inner city schools. But as time went on, more and more police departments started employing officers whose chief responsibility was to watch our kids, even in districts with low crime rates. Now there are nearly 20,000 of these officers nationwide.

It turns out that we may be seeing the beginning of a similar trend in our public schools, but instead of police officers, it will be with employees from Child Protective Services. In Erie County, New York, the school districts have announced a new partnership with the Department of Social Services, that would allow CPS workers to show up in their schools several days a week. They will have to provide an office for the workers, who will be able to “streamline” their investigations into child welfare.

Much like how the employment of school resource officers was largely fueled by zero tolerance policies that routinely have students arrested for absurd reasons, this new push for school CPS workers is no doubt a response to our society’s paranoia regarding child safety. But considering the fact that CPS departments are known to take kids away from healthy homes, drug them up to their eyeballs, and place them in the homes of sex offenders, perhaps parents should be a little more paranoid about having CPS workers around their children on a daily basis.