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It was to do just these things, of course — to find out how the program was seen and if it was wanted — before the board made the decision it made late Wednesday night.

That was the plan, to have evidence-based decision-making. It was kiboshed when, shortly before the meeting, trustee Marit Stiles (also the president of the federal NDP) moved the “temporary” suspension under “new business.”

Trustee Ausma Malik seconded the motion, and it passed by a resounding 16-6 vote.

The rationalization veneer for the board acting without evidence — either from its own proposed review and/or the one the Toronto Police has asked Ryerson University to conduct — is contained in Stiles’ motion.

If there are still officers working in the board’s 45 schools, the motion says, students, especially the “most marginalized,” might be potentially intimidated and not feel comfortable and safe speaking honestly.

This is a such a monumental crock it defies belief: A student, asked anonymously to say what she thinks of SROs, would be bullied into silence or not being truthful by the very knowledge that somewhere in the school was a uniformed cop? Oh please.

No one, including the board, knows how well or not the program was working. All they know is that activist Desmond Cole, Black Lives Matter and others in the black community wanted it to end, and that the program has been controversial in some quarters from the get-go.

But the program was hardly foisted upon the Toronto board by the oppressive police.