The Concord School Board wants to hear from the public about the role of police in schools. The board is holding a public hearing March 3 to discuss the future of its school resource officer position at Concord High School.
The school board is in the midst of work sessions for the 2021-22 budget and is undecided about whether to include the $88,000 school resource officer position.
“There’s been a lot of discussion around the purpose and value of an SRO in the schools,” interim superintendent Kathleen Murphy said Friday. “I think the school board is being responsive to concerns that members of our Concord community have, and I think it is great to be able to open it up and hear the voices of our community. The board wants that opportunity to hear from the public and that will give them additional information to be able to decide about that position for the budget.”
Local school districts in New Hampshire and beyond have been questioning the role of police in schools this year, in light of last summer’s protests against police violence following the May killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
Those against school resource officers point to studies like the Juvenile Justice Reform Project’s 2019 report “Keeping Kids in School” that shows students of color and students with disabilities are punished more frequently and with greater severity than their white or non-disabled peers, and cite links to a “school to prison” pipeline
Proponents of school resource officers say they build positive relationships between students and law enforcement, address behavioral issues, and keep schools safe. In New Hampshire, school resource officers act as a “triad”: law enforcement officers, educators, and informal counselors, according to the NH Police Standards and Training Council.
One of the recommendations on the action plan developed by Concord School District’s anti-racism advisory committee this year is to review the impact and effectiveness of school resource officers in schools.
This week, Change for Concord, a local racial justice advocacy group, drafted a letter calling for the Concord School District to abolish its school resource officer position, citing data from the U.S. Department of Education indicating that Black students have received a disproportionate brunt of the punishments by police in Concord schools. It has been signed by 71 people, including students, alumni, parents, and community members.
“First, we disagree that law enforcement officers, armed with weapons and the authority to arrest, belong in schools. Second, SROs are neither competent educators nor counselors,” the letter reads. “… We feel that the school could better spend the money for the SRO program elsewhere. In particular, additional mental health and counseling resources (including professionals who reflect the identities of the student and community population) would make the school safer and improve the quality of students’ lives.”
The conversation is happening in other parts of the state, too. Voters in Lebanon will decide in March whether to do away with the school resource officer position in Lebanon’s schools.
And a bill filed in the New Hampshire senate this session seeks to limit the authority of school resource officers by prohibiting them from searching students without probable cause, arresting students at school unless they pose a “substantial and imminent threat,” and questioning students to elicit criminal information without first consulting the principal and parents, among other things.
The passage of the Concord school budget is not contingent on a immediate decision about the SRO position. At a budget work session Feb. 10, board president Jim Richards said they can hypothetically eliminate the position later, even if the money has been budgeted.
“Even if we pass the budget, we can direct the administration to terminate or eliminate that position,” Richards said. “The money would need to be reallocated or it would be excess for us at the end of the year.”
But Murphy said the district wants to decide fairly soon, so the Concord Police Department can plan its staffing arrangement, too.
The March 3 hearing will begin at 5:30 p.m. in the Christa McAuliffe Auditorium at Concord High School, with masks and distancing required. People can also attend virtually via Zoom. The hearing will begin with a presentation by the administration about the work the resource officer does and the data that the district has collected relative to the officer’s responsibilities at the high school, according to Murphy. Then it will be opened up for public comment.
“Given the climate not only in Concord, but statewide as well as nationally, I think it’s important that those topics are aired publicly so people have a chance to share their thoughts,” Murphy said.