School district looks to eliminate school resource officers

Amid a concerted effort to cut back the district’s budget, the school board is eying SROs. The district pays the Laramie Police Department $150,000 a year, but the program’s benefits are questionable.

When students return to Laramie High School and Laramie Middle School in the fall, they’ll be less likely to see police officers wandering the halls.

That’s because Albany County School District 1 is probably going to stop paying the Laramie Police Department for the service.

As it seeks to deal with a $2.1 million budget deficit, the Albany County School Board is looking to cut expenses and scale back activities that hurt the bottom line. During a work session earlier this month, the trustees discussed axing the school resource officer program — a costly line item with dubious efficacy.

“We pay the Laramie Police Department $150,000 a year to have the three officers assigned to us,” Superintendent John Goldhardt told the board. “At the high school, they're there 3-4 days a week. The middle school hasn't seen much of a presence and Whiting (High School) hasn't either. They've been short on patrol officers and so a lot of what we're paying for is actually paying for patrol, quite honestly.”

If that annual payment doesn’t actually buy a police presence, several trustees questioned why the district should be footing the bill at all.

“(We’re) hearing from a couple of principals that SROs are not even actually there, so when there is a need, they have to make that call,” Trustee Janice Marshall said. “So it really hasn't been the benefit that we expected for that $150,000.”

Others agreed with Marshall that SROs could be a positive presence on campus, but what the district is currently getting is not worth the price.

“I've always been a proponent of this,” Trustee Beth Bear said. “I think more than anything, the relationships that students build are really important and I think it’s really regrettable that it seems like, for several years, this has not met the intention of what we wanted it to be. And it is a lot of money.”

Bear added public schools should be “considered part of the community” by law enforcement.

“I would think that even if we're not sending $150,000 to our law enforcement agencies for this role, that they should still fill some of this role,” she said. “And I think that's a reasonable request.”

Others raised concerns about the very concept of having law enforcement officers as an ever-present feature on school campuses.

Trustee Carrie Murthy said she had an emotional response to the suggestion of removing SROs from district schools, given the frequency of school shootings. But outside of her role on the school board, Murthy is a professional education researcher, so she dug into the research on SROs.

“The research that I found indicates there's no clear evidence that the use of school resource officers or guards in school is effective in preventing school violence,” Murthy said. “Research shows that school security measures including SROs generally increase students' fear and negatively impacts students’ perception of safety. Police encounters and SRO presence can trigger stress, severe trauma and anxiety for students.”

Trustee Marshall said these realities are borne out in the anecdotes she’s heard from individual students. Given the wide variety of home lives and life circumstances experienced by students, a uniformed officer doesn’t have positive connotations for every one. For students who have had adverse interactions with police outside of school, encountering law enforcement on campus does little for their sense of safety or ability to learn.

About half of Albany County’s K-12 public school students say they don’t feel like they belong in school. Large percentages of those students have been bullied or harassed for their physical appearance, gender identity or sexual orientation.

The presence of school resource officers hasn’t helped that. But Trustee Murthy said there are other solutions that could.

“There are things that do work that don't require a school resource officer,” she said. “And it really comes down to relationships — relationships with adults in the schools. And so I think it is really important that if we make this decision to take school resource officers away, that we really are paying attention to what does work.”

Murthy offered some suggestions.

“When schools focus on social emotional development, student outcomes improve,” she said. “Schools with strong positive climates, including strong relationships among students and teachers, have fewer disciplinary problems.”

The board is scheduled to finalize its budget for the next fiscal year in July.