Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/sros/)
As kids' behavior reaches crisis points after the stress and isolation of pandemic shutdowns, many schools are facing pressure from critics to rethink their approaches to discipline — including policies intended to reduce suspensions and expulsions.
Madison is one of about 49 public school districts nationwide that, according to Education Week, have trimmed or eliminated school policing programs since 2020. While some districts that removed police officers have reported largely positive results, in Madison, some students, parents and educators are considering what they believe they’ve lost.
By September 2020, 11 new unarmed public safety support specialists, many with law enforcement-related backgrounds, were in place and on the Minneapolis Public Schools payroll. Two years and one pandemic later, initial data and interviews with students and staff suggest that fewer Minneapolis students are being punished and, consequently, missing class for suspensions or other punishment.
For Madeline Borrelli, a special education teacher in Brooklyn, N.Y., having NYPD-trained law enforcement officers in schools is a cut-and-dry issue: “School safety agents,” she said, using their official job title, “ … should not exist at all.”
As a budget deadline looms for New York today, the city’s Public Advocate said he will hold up the budget if he does not get commitments for massive reforms to how school safety is administered.
In the aftermath of the deadly shooting last month at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., intense public debate has focused on protecting students – and the role of student resource officers (SROs), in particular – in the event of future shooting sprees. Generally, school resource officers are local law enforcement officers appointed to patrol schools and handle juvenile disciplinary issues. The effectiveness of SROs is highly debated. A National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) report claims the presence of SROs has reduced juvenile arrests in some schools by nearly 50 percent. On the other hand, the Justice Policy Institute issued a report that found SROs had little effect on curbing criminal activity in schools, and may even lead to inflated, and potentially unnecessary, juvenile arrests.