Minneapolis
The Minneapolis Board of Education cancelled their contract with the City Police Department to station officers in their schools. In the wake of the George Floyd murder by a Minneapolis Police officer, the Board felt they no longer could have officers as part of their educational process. It probably wasn’t about the individual officers in the buildings. The Board of Education must feel that the continued presence of “police” in their buildings would continue the hostile environment that Minneapolis minority students already feel outside the school. The Board felt they had to “take a side,” and chose their students.
SRO’s
The movement to “imbed” police officers into school systems, particularly at the high school level, started back in Flint, Michigan in the 1950’s. The idea was to create relationships between the students and police officers outside of normal enforcement. In the 1970’s, some large urban school districts actually created their own sworn police forces (think of the 1984 movie Teachers with Nick Nolte, JoBeth Williams and Ralph Macchio). But the liability and expense made “school-cops” an expendable item on Districts budget.
That changed in the age of school shootings, and particularly after Columbine. Districts began to look for ways to get the ultimate protection, a police officer with a gun, full time in the school building. The speed of casualties in a school shooting meant that the officer presence in the building could save lives. And, it didn’t hurt that from 1999 to 2005, the US Department of Justice gave $750 million in grants for “School Resource Officers”, SRO’s.
But today, SRO’s don’t just “sit around” and wait for a school shooter. They patrol the building and get involved in student discipline issues, including fights and drug use. SRO’s serve as contact for students who need to report criminal issues, particularly for abuse situations. They advise school administrators about security needs for the buildings and for large school events. And they do exactly what the 1950’s Flint plan hoped: communicate with kids on an informal basis, establishing relationships between “cops and kids” outside of speeding tickets, traffic accidents and regular policing.
On the Job
As a high school Dean of Students, I had the opportunity to work with several Student Resource Officers. All of them took their role as a bridge from police to students seriously. They reached out to students that didn’t necessarily have other adults at school they could talk to. From that standpoint, having an SRO in the building was a good thing.
It was common for the SRO to be “hanging out” in the cafeteria at lunchtime. What looked like “lunch duty” was really an opportunity for conversation and building relationships. Our SRO’s even wandered up to the gym, open for lunchtime “recess”, and shot a basket or two. It made “the police” accessible to students in a non-threatening way.
But the problem today is that what were traditionally “school problems,” in-house discipline issues, now have become criminal issues. The fight in the hallway, or the kid with a pocketknife or a joint in his pocket now is “automatically” a police report and possible juvenile court referral. The “school to prison” pipeline, fueled by “zero-tolerance” policies, creates the first contact with the justice system. That record has future consequences in punishment and sentencing.
It’s not that the SRO’s are wrong: they are doing their job. A police officer in a public situation like a school environment can’t look away when a weapon is found or an illegal drug is involved. But what was school discipline; suspension or expulsion back in the 1980’s or 90’s now may result in a criminal conviction as well.
Balancing Needs
It’s not that schools shouldn’t call the police. There are situations where it’s more than necessary: a gang-fight in the halls, the rumor of a gun in the building, the adult coming to school to hurt someone. All of those things happened during my tenure as Dean of Students. And all of those occurred when the school district couldn’t afford to have an SRO. We had to handle those things in-house until the police could arrive.
But Districts need to weigh the balance between education and policing. Having an SRO embedded in the school might work in the suburban district where I was Dean of Students. But it might not work in the more polarized environment of an urban school. It’s not about being for the cops or against. It’s about what’s best for the students in that school system. That’s what Minneapolis had to weigh. And that’s what Districts across the country will have to consider in our new “I Can’t Breathe” era.
