According to Kingston City School District (KCSD) officials, the school resource officer (SRO) program has become more successful since the establishment a few years ago of a committee dedicated to ensuring community input isn’t just being heard, but also considered.
“Honestly, I do believe the whole situation with creating this SRO committee was probably the best thing we could have done for the SRO program,” said LeShawn Parker, the district coordinator of safety and prevention, during a KCSD School Board meeting held on Wednesday, December 11. “To hear from the community and have community people on that committee…I think it kind of put everyone’s feet to the fire so to speak.”
The SRO program, in which off-duty police officers are hired by school districts, didn’t originate in the KCSD. According to the National Association of School Resource Officers, the first time a district partnered with law enforcement to assign police officers to schools was in Flint, Michigan in the late 1950’s. SRO programs began gaining popularity nationwide in the 1990’s, and by 2023 there were around 23,400 sworn SROs across the country. Four of those are in the Kingston City School District.
But what exactly is a school resource officer?
“Allow me to first start with what they’re not,” said Parker. “A school resource officer is not a security guard, although they help secure our eleven different school campuses, the central office and the warehouse, culminating in 17 buildings and more than 1,313,740 square feet of educational space. They’re not monitors, although they help us to monitor approximately 1,100 individuals and 6,400 students, not including visitors, parents, sporting event attendees and after school event attendees. They’re not administrators, although they help ensure that students, teachers and families have the resources they need to help the school meet educational standards. They’re not teachers, although they spend their summer teaching our students in summer programs.”
What SROs are, Parker said, are local law enforcement officers who are carefully-selected and specifically trained to enhance the physical and goal of this community in partnership with local law enforcement to enhance the physical and emotional safety of the entire diversity of the KCSD students and staff under the guidance of KCSD school administrators, and will support the district-wide safety plan while pursuing a respectful harmonious integration with the entire school community through programming and daily positive interaction.
That is a tall order, Parker confirmed. But it does seem to be paying dividends, particularly over the past few years as the SRO program has begun implementing recommendations from the community committee, which was formed in 2020.
“Old contracts were reviewed and decisions made to better the program’s connection with the school district,” Parker said, with changes including a more relaxed uniform, a streamlined complaint process, ongoing professional development, maintaining daily logs, and no student arrests on campus.
“As of this year, there were three appearance tickets given and one arrest on campus,” Parker said. “The arrest was a contractor who did not have ID. After running his name, they were found to have an extraditable felony warrant and were arrested on campus. But no students were arrested on campus.”
There are routine parts of an SROs day: They provide ground checks, help with campus traffic, deliver suspension letters, assist with safety drills, participate in parent conferences, meet with community agencies and other first responders, help with sporting events, and investigate all active and possible threats.
“While doing this, they are expected to continue to build and maintain positive relationships with all in the community and with the school community,” Parker said. “It’s known that positive relationships with adults, particularly teachers and school staff, can significantly reduce school violence by creating a sense of connection and belonging, which makes students less likely to engage in violent behavior.”
Since March of this year, there have been 911 interactions logged by KCSD SROs, just 13 of those with students. Other interactions include teachers (5), administrators (130), faculty and staff (105), and the vast majority, 634, with “other.” According to Parker, other covers a wide range of interactions, including those lacking clarity: Parents, members of the public, staff by title only, student first names only and traffic, perimeter check and ground patrol interactions.
Of the 911, there were 50 more detailed interactions, and those can cover everything from self harm, mental health concerns, possession and distribution of explicit content, theft, threat assessment, medical emergencies, substance abuse and suspicion, vandalism and property damage, and bullying and physical altercations.
Overall, trustees were pleased to see what appears to be positive changes in the SRO program, but some still felt there was work to be done.
“One of the concerns that was brought up was that…SROs be available (at back-to-school nights) so that parents could just have some familiarity with them,” said school board vice-president Suzanne Jordan. “I don’t know if that was instituted or not. And if it wasn’t, I really hope that maybe in the future, that can be part of what they do in September, because I think there was a feeling that people just wanted to understand better. So even if they had a table in the main hall, something like that, I think that there was a lot of interest in that.”
There were also questions about how the complaint process was streamlined.
“We streamline d it in our policy, in our informal policy with parents as well to call the principal of the school, and that will streamline it through our administrators,” Parker said. “I think in the past they weren’t sure if they should call the police station or if they were supposed to call the school or even who to call. But our administrators are that connection between your complaint and if you have something to say about an SRO, call the school district.”
Superintendent Paul Padalino agreed that communicating that information to parents and students could be more effective.
“Three years ago when we first did changes in the contract, we did create a new streamlined complaint process,” he said. “And I know at the high school, it was put up on their website and it was there for people to see in that way. Could we do a better job and maybe even take a second look at that, update it? Yeah, I think that would probably be a good thing for us to do.”
Trustee Cathy Collins said she hoped further looks into SRO data will include deeper demographic information.
“I think one of our questions has always been are there disproportionate responses according to different demographic groups?” Collins said. “And so making that relative to the demographics of our community in the school would be, I think, helpful for us to detect that and make sure that we are not biased in any particular direction.”
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