October 3, 2022 by Ciara Meyer (’23)
On September 29, the Saratoga Springs City School District’s (SSCSD) Board of Education (BOE) meeting opened with a public comment period dominated by demands for more School Resource Officers (SROs), police officers specifically trained to work in academic environments, on school campuses. Since the BOE meeting in July, conversations over what to do about SROs have been pervasive at both the board table and in the community’s public comment period, but the debates over whether to increase SRO presence on school campuses have no end in sight.
Currently, the SSCSD has two SROs—Officer Barrett of the Saratoga Springs City Police Department (SSPD), whose home base is SSHS, and Officer Martin of the County Sheriff’s Department who travels between Maple Avenue, Greenfield, and Dorthy Nolan. The issue of adding more SROs came to the forefront after an additional SSPD officer, not one of our two contracted SROs, began to spend more time at Division Street Elementary School than normal.
This, compounded by increased concern for school safety following the Uvalde school shooting, led to a motion by BOE Trustee Connie Woytowich to discuss fitting more SROs, particularly SROs that would be stationed at elementary schools, into the district’s budget. By August, it was determined that adding more SROs would cost $225,000. A motion to discuss spending some of the district’s reserves on hiring these SROs failed.
“Most of the activity and commentary has been public comment since then,” said BOE President Tony Krackeler. “Trustee Anjie Emeka moved at one of the meetings to table all discussions of SROs until the NICER (school safety) audit was finished and that also failed, but that’s been the only other formal thing.”
Those public comments have been heated, in the September 29th meeting one community member even screamed out “bang” repeatedly during his statement to symbolize bodies dropping during a school shooting. It’s not just the pro-SRO side that has a lot to say, those in opposition have notable concerns with increasing SRO presence in the SSCSD.
“I feel like there’s so much more that our school could contribute to making our students feel safe, rather than just armed resistance,” Student BOE Representative Kate Thompson said, speaking in her personal capacity. She believes one step that should be taken, rather than adding more SROs, is offering more training for staff and teachers on how to handle escalated and tense situations. “Anybody that’s ‘in charge’ of a kid has to understand a child’s mind and how to properly treat a child in crisis,” says Thompson.
Thompson also noted concerns with equitable treatment of students by SROs, noting that disadvantaged students and students of color often seem to have more challenging relationships with police on campus. Thompson’s claims aren’t unfounded, with one report from researchers at SUNY Albany demonstrating that increased police presence on campus led to increased disparities in punishment severity across student backgrounds. Black, male, and disabled students were more likely to face harsher punishments than their white, female, and able-bodied peers when SROs were on campuses.
There are steps the BOE can take to mitigate these issues, such as altering Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) that dictate how SROs and other outside hires can conduct themselves on campus. In accordance with the National Association of SROs (NASRO) recommendations, Barrett’s MOU includes a clause that he is not allowed to make arrests on campus. “If the studies are saying that SROs are adding, I don’t make arrests so ultimately I couldn’t be adding anything to discipline disparities,” Barrett said.
When it comes to the policy of adding SROs to elementary school campuses, Barrett said, “at the elementary level, if you have the parents working together, the administration, the school psychologist, and law enforcement all working we can be proactive and build relationships at a younger age.” Barrett noted that it’s the BOE’s call on whether SROs are actually added, but that the SSPD is ready to support them if they so chose.
Barrett and SRO supporters have brought up the idea of providing a role model for younger students as a primary reason why SROs should be added to elementary school campuses. Thompson disagrees with this, saying, “I’ve heard the role model argument and I think that anybody can be a good role model to a kid. I don’t think we need to turn to a man in uniform to be the ultimate example of a role model, because that’s not what all of those children look like.”
When it comes to the more measurable impacts of adding SROs, reports are inconclusive. A study from Washington University in St. Louis found that tighter security, such as increased SRO presence, is correlated with lower student test scores. Additional concerns, such as contributing to the school-to-prison pipeline, have been brought up by community members during the BOE’s public comment periods. NASRO claims that SROs do not contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, but, again, the data here is varied. SROs do appear to decrease certain types of violence on school campuses, but it’s unclear what, if any, impact they have on preventing or mitigating the effects of school shootings.
It’s SSCSD BOE custom for members not to talk to the press about their opinions on issues facing the Board, but their opinions can be garnered from statements made at BOE meetings. Trustee Woytowich has led the charge to increase SRO presence on SSCSD campuses. “I feel like it needs to be acknowledged that some people may feel safer when there is an SRO in the building,” Woytowich said during the August BOE meeting.
Trustee John Brueggemann voted against the motion to discuss spending $225,000 on additional SROs for elementary schools, expressing that he wants to Board to wait until the NICER safety audit gives a clearer sense of what steps the district should take to improve safety. “NICER has this expertise because they look at so many schools,” Brueggemann said at the August meeting. Waiting to see the NICER report data was the main reason Trustees Brueggemann, John Ellis, Krackeler, Natalya Lakhtakia, and Emeka stated for voting against the motion to discuss adding SROs to elementary schools in August. Once that report comes out, the issue of adding SROs will likely be back on the Board’s agenda.
“The NICER report is coming in a couple of weeks, and we’ll be discussing it in December or January. Because the budget for the school year has already been passed, there is no room in the delineated budget for this year to add SROs or anyone else, but the district has reserves,” Krackeler said. “The possibility of adding SROs is not closed for this school year.”
As debates remain fervent, Thompson just hopes that BOE members and SSCSD families keep student opinions central to their decision-making. “Speak to the kids,” Thompson said, “what really matters at the end of the day is what the students feel.”