Sign up for Chalkbeat Philadelphia’s free newsletter to keep up with the city’s public school system.Kevin Bethel was in charge of Philadelphia school safety during what he called “a very difficult, dark time” for the city.While serving as the School District of Philadelphia’s school safety chief from 2019 to 2023, Bethel watched the city’s fatal and nonfatal shooting tallies climb. About 200 children per year were injured or killed by firearms during that period, according to city data.“I would see young people getting shot outside the schools — Roxborough, Lincoln, Bartram, just killed,” he said. “It was something I’d never seen in my lifetime.”But now, the city is in “a far, far better place,” said Bethel, who became the city’s police commissioner in 2024. The number of shootings in the city has fallen dramatically: There were half as many fatal shootings last year as there were in 2022. The number of children who’ve been shot has also been steadily declining.Bethel attributes the change to multiple collaborations between the police department and the city, including a violence reduction initiative at Bartram High School that he helped design and a Safe Path program that places trained adults on school perimeters.Bethel continues to pitch in on school safety, alongside the Philadelphia Police Department’s Director of Gang Reduction and Youth Development David Irizarry. The two tout the success of in-school restorative justice programs and a trauma-focused initiative called Handle With Care.But Bethel said he is especially proud of the school diversion program, which connects students who would otherwise be arrested for certain offenses to preventative programs instead. He also highlighted the city’s Town Watch Integrated Services team, which trains neighborhood groups on how to protect children walking to and from school.However, there were multiple large-scale fights in the fall that worried neighbors and garnered social media attention. Many community members fear even more conflicts will arise if the school district moves forward with its plan to close 18 facilities and merge or co-locate certain schools. Chalkbeat asked Bethel to lay out some of what he feels is improving school safety, and what’s needed for the future.This interview has been edited for length and clarity.What are some of the ways that the school district and police department work together?Our school diversion program, that is one of our marquee programs. We started in 2014 when the [police were] locking up 1,600 children a year [in schools] … kids as young as 10 years of age, for a whole series of things. I was here as a deputy commissioner running operations at that point. I was very frustrated with the number of young people being arrested. I had been part of a national program asking law enforcement leaders across America, “how are you going to address the disparities?” Because many of the kids being locked up were African American or Latino. That would also open the doors to understanding trauma, adolescent development, brain science, all of that. And so we started that program in 2014 and today we’re at over a 90% reduction. Last year we had 72 kids arrested for a system that used to lock up 1,600.We continue to support the school district as it relates to dismissal times, and we have around 60 officers assigned to the schools across the city to support the dismissals. Most of the high schools have specific coverage, and then we have rolling patrols for our lower grade schools to support that. And then there’s certain corridors that we try to increase our activity. After the unfortunate homicide of the student at Imhotep Institute Charter High School, where he got killed on Ogontz Avenue, we started to increase some of our activity around our main corridors as well. Just since this fall, there have been some pretty large-scale fights on high school campuses. What have you found to be effective for handling those?There’s so much that can ignite young people to engage in that activity. If there’s intelligence or information [that police or a school] received prior that there’s going to be something, then the expectation is that folks are going to get into that and intercept that.It’s very rare with our young people that we have to use high levels of force. Most times they’re not really trying to attack the police officers, they’re just fighting each other. But our expectation is this is not just a policing issue. And in particular in our larger schools, we’re expecting the safety team at the school district, which is not just the school safety office, but everyone in that school, to bring it under control, and then we’re here. Our goal is coming to support that. Especially when it’s occurring inside the school, they know the students, they know the players, they know what the discipline should be like. With school closures on the horizon, how will PPD be involved with children potentially having new walking routes to school?These are not immediate changes. There’s going to be this transition that will happen as more things start to unfold. It’s not just me. It’s obviously the Safe Corridors program working out of Town Watch Integrated Services. It may require some of that activity to come into play. But what we clearly should know, that we should understand, is what the pathway is. In the earlier closings, there were some adjustments of the school crossing guards. So that expectation will be something that will be a part of those plans, to make sure that those intersections that a child may have to walk are properly covered.This story is part of a collaboration between Chalkbeat Philadelphia and The New York Times’s Headway Initiative, supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) via the Local Media Foundation.Sammy Caiola covers solutions to gun violence in and around Philadelphia schools. Have ideas for her? Get in touch at scaiola@chalkbeat.org.
