For the first time in 19 years, Montgomery County schools have opened without School Resource Officers (SROs). In the past, MCPS had one SRO deployed in every high school, amounting to a total of 26 officers. The overall goal of the SRO program was to foster a safe and secure learning environment in schools, however, the impropriety exhibited by SROs has since overshadowed this goal. After George Floyd’s death was ruled a homicide due to police brutality, the Montgomery County Board of Education began to evaluate the effectiveness of its SRO program.
According to a Healthy Schools Campaign article, the presence of law enforcement at schools did not enhance school safety. Studies have shown that instead of protecting our schools, SROs are criminalizing students of color, reinforcing the school-to-prison pipeline. Black students made up a disproportionately large number of student arrests in schools, revealing that SROs’ implicit racial biases obstruct their ability to adequately and justly serve their schools. Richard Montgomery Junior Cleopha Costa said, “SROs make students more anxious, sometimes cause trauma, and increase the number of police contacts and thus their likelihood of getting in a mess with the criminal justice system.”
Of the 460 student arrests in MCPS these past three school years, a staggering 83% of these arrests were Black and Hispanic students, while only 11% of arrests were white students, according to Bethesda Magazine. These statistics reveal how SROs were targeting minority students, creating more anxiety among these groups. It also undermines their sense of security at school —something that the SRO program was supposedly there to help improve.
Similar numbers have shown up in other states in terms of student arrest demographics. For instance, data from Ohio revealed that Black students in Cincinnati were five times more likely to get a law enforcement referral in comparison to their white peers. Even though Black students are multiple times more likely to encounter severe discipline at school, they are not statistically shown to misbehave more than white students.
SROs undergo implicit bias training due to the frequency of which they deal with student discipline, however these trainings have not shown to correlate with decreased bias in SROs, as stated by an ACLU article. Since it has been exemplified that SROs can not perform their jobs impartially, the abolishment of the program will be beneficial in making school more equitable for all students.
With the eradication of the SRO program, MCPS now aims to replace SROs with Community Engagement Officers. Instead of having individual officers stationed at each MCPS high school, Community Engagement Officers will be assigned areas to patrol around schools. Chief of Staff to the Superintendent James N. D’Andrea said, “The officers may be told by the department’s central dispatch system to respond to incidents on campus when necessary, but they will not be in direct communication with school officials.”
This will prevent law enforcement from getting involved unless absolutely necessary. Limited involvement is a step in the right direction for reducing the school-to-prison pipeline and helping minority students feel more comfortable at school. With Community Engagement Officers, students will still feel safe knowing there are officers watching over the general area without the fear and anxiety of being maliciously targeted in school by SROs.
Overall, the idea of the SRO program was well-intentioned but its actual application in school systems was faulty. Because it is impossible to be 100% unbiased, replacing SROs with Community Engagement Officers is the next best thing for school safety. Engagement Officers will not be in such close kahoots with school individuals as to inflict their personal biases, but still close enough to where they can offer their protection as law enforcement officers. It is important to take the steps to eliminate the potential for bias wherever and whenever possible.
Article by Alexandra Doncheva of Richard Montgomery High School
Photo courtesy of Megan Cloherty