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This study examined the impact of policy changes resulting in the removal of school police on student outcomes. The study took advantage of recent widespread school police policy changes in California and extant survey and administrative data, and used a quasi-experimental study to compare school districts that removed school police during 2019-20 or 2020-21 with a matched comparison group of districts that did not remove school police. The study examined the impact of such policies on middle and high school students' reported safety, behavior, and well-being as well as administrative disciplinary data (suspensions).

This study also examined whether school police policy changes had differential impacts depending on the level of schools' mental health supports (student-to-counselor ratio). Finally, researchers conducted interviews with a sample of administrators and partnering community-based providers to identify the reasons for, and impact of, removing or retaining school police as well as policies and practices implemented as alternatives. There are no impact studies, to the researchers' knowledge, that examined the impact of removing school police. This study's findings are critical to understanding how the presence of police in schools relate to student outcomes.