Oakland Unified officials are hoping that technology and a newly organized school police force will make up for the loss of 30 full-time school safety officers slated to lose their jobs in July because of Oakland Unified School District’s budget crisis.

The school district’s six-person police force will be shouldering more of the responsibility for keeping Oakland’s public school campuses safe after the number of school safety officers is reduced by more than 25 percent across 45 campuses. School district officials say that increased oversight of police and safety officers, combined with video surveillance, and better cooperation with the Oakland Police Department “should help to mitigate some of the safety concerns related to reduced…staffing levels.”

In the 2008-2009 school year, the school board expelled 18 students for “persistently dangerous” violence or drug use, according to records from the California Department of Education. School officials say that a public safety database tracking incidents allows OUSD police officers to track trends and deploy cops and safety officers more wisely. School cops will also be watching video feeds from several campuses 20 hours a day seven days a week. The money for the video cameras comes from a $1.5 million Department of Justice grant that OUSD announced in January.

While violence on school campuses has decreased across the country from a high in the mid-1990s, Oakland schools continue to grapple with serious incidents. In March of last year, armed men robbed students in the hallways of Oakland Technical High School. Last fall, police arrested a juvenile carrying a gun at a football game at the same school. In 2007, around 10 percent of Oakland high school and middle school students reported carrying a gun to school at least once.