The Minneapolis Board of Education (MBOE) voted unanimously on Tuesday (June 2) to end their contract with the local police department in the wake of George Floyd’s death, The Guardian reports. “We cannot continue to be in partnership with an organization that has the culture of violence and racism that the Minneapolis police department has historically demonstrated,” school board member Nelson Inz said of the decision. “We have to stand in solidarity with our Black students.”

“It is deeply frustrating that the MPS board needed to see a Minneapolis police officer brutally murder George Floyd in order to finally make the change that students have been demanding for years,” Kenneth Eban of student advocacy group Our Turn Twin Cities said in a statement obtained by MPLS. “Students have directly advocated to end the contract with MPD with school board members through emails, meetings, delivering hundreds of petition signatures, and providing testimony at school board meetings,” he said.

In a letter to the Minneapolis Board of Ed last week, student members of Our Turn Twin Cities said, “Black and brown students do not feel safe. Recent police actions that lead to George Floyd’s death have made this trauma even worse for young people, especially given a long history of students of color being unfairly targeted by school discipline policies.”

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