Sacramento, CA – At the California School Board Association’s Annual Education Conference held earlier this month in Sacramento, the CSBA awarded Sacramento City Unified’s Re-Imagining School Safety program with the 2025 Golden Bell Award for Positive School Climate and Safety.
In June of 2020, community members requested restorative practices be incorporated by the Sacramento City Unified School District. The SCUSD School Board responded by terminating police services contracts for school resource officers (SRO’s) and put in place a resolution to Re-Imagine School Safety. SCUSD staff were tasked to develop and implement a strategy that would meet the needs of the district in a student and community responsive way.
“The Golden Bell Award recognizes the exceptional work our district has done to enhance student outcomes,” said Jasjit Singh, SCUSD Board President. “Under the leadership of Ray Lozada, our Executive Director of Safe Schools, we’ve not only become a national leader in school safety strategies but also a model for other districts rethinking their safety protocols. Our efforts demonstrate that alternatives to the school-to-prison pipeline are not just effective, but should be the gold standard in fostering a safer, more supportive environment for all students.”
“Moving away from an SRO safety model was highly controversial when it was first proposed back in 2020,” said Lisa Allen, Superintendent, Sacramento City Unified. “The successes we have seen on our campuses over these last few years have been incredibly rewarding. I thank our Safe Schools Executive Director Ray Lozada and his team, along with our community organizations, parents, school administrators, and educators for collaborating to make safety a priority for our district.”
Today, the SCUSD Office of Safe Schools assigns trained safety officers to schools, and provides school site personnel with training to de-escalate conflict. SCUSD partners with parents and community organizations to help the district reduce dependency on local law enforcement to remedy conflict. Local law enforcement is a valued partner with whom Sacramento City Unified will often collaborate to address crimes, large crowd events, or when alternative interventions are insufficient. SCUSD Safe Schools personnel are bolstered by institutional knowledge and lived experience with structured training. Every team member has been trained in: Threat Assessment; Advanced Non-Violent Crisis Prevention and Intervention; Gang Prevention Training; School-to-Prison Pipeline. These trainings have been opened up to the community.
In addition to SCUSD leadership, the award also acknowledges three community partners who helped make the safety plan possible. Award recipients acknowledged include:
Lisa Allen, SCUSD Superintendent
Jasjit Singh, SCUSD Board President
SCUSD Board of Education
Ray Lozada, SCUSD Executive Director of the Office of Safe Schools
Melecia Navarro, SCUSD Safety Intervention & Response Coordinator
Manuel Medina, SCUSD Safety Officer
Max Conrad, SCUSD Lead Campus Supervisor
Black Parallel School Board
Jackie Rose, Rose Family Creative Empowerment Center
Greg King, Always Knocking
More about the Golden Bell: The Golden Bell is one of the California School Boards Association’s prestigious Golden Awards which first began in 1979 with the introduction of the Golden Bell award. This award program promotes excellence in education and school board governance by recognizing outstanding programs and governance practices of school boards in districts and county offices of education throughout California. The Golden Bell Awards reflect the depth and breadth of education programs and governance decisions supporting these programs that are necessary to address students’ changing needs.