Wake County agrees to hire school resource officers

Police officers will remain in Wake County schools for the next three years despite concerns from some school leaders that officers may be overly focusing on Black and brown students.

The Wake County School Board voted to extend the contract with local law enforcement agencies governing the role of school resource officers through June 2027. The board also approved contracts with various agencies to provide school resource officers for the upcoming school year.

School leaders say the updated memorandum of understanding outlines when school staff should intervene and ensures they have the appropriate training to work with students.

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“It clearly defines the roles and responsibilities of SROs,” Kendrick Scott, senior director of safety at Wake, told the school board before the vote. “It provides very detailed definitions of student misbehavior, where SRO intervention is appropriate and where it is not.”

School board member Toshiba Rice was the only member to vote against renewing the memorandum of understanding or signing the contract with officers. She said students of color feel like they are being targeted by school officials.

“I will continue to vote no on SROs until we see a real place for them where they are effective for all students in Wake County, not a specific group of students,” Rice said.

Principles of SRO intervention

County law enforcement employs officers at all Wake high schools and middle schools and some elementary schools. The agreement is updated periodically.

The agreement was updated in 2021 to add language specifying when officers should intervene and how much force they should use. The new agreement continues this theme by stating that law enforcement intervention is not expected to be necessary in response to most student misconduct.

“The parties agree that law enforcement and SRO interventions should be limited to those incidents of student misconduct that pose a threat to the school environment and that cannot be better resolved by referral to another source,” according to the agreement.

Scott told the board that school resource officers receive training in areas such as de-escalation tactics and equity.

According to Chief Inspector Robert Taylor, physical policing, such as breaking up fights, should not make up the bulk of policing.

“It’s not really about safety and making sure there’s someone in the building who has a gun and a badge,” Taylor told the board. “I can tell you that after seeing SRO from the mid-1990s to where we are now, it’s completely different. SROs engage in a tremendous amount of training.

Concerns of Black and Brown Students

The district’s assurances did not convince some people.

According to Surena Johnson, parent organizer of the Education Justice Alliance, Wake should look for alternatives to school resource officers, such as more counselors and the use of mediation. The group has previously asked Wake to remove police from schools.

“ACLU research has shown that the presence of a police or law enforcement officer in the school system has a greater impact on Black and brown students,” Johnson said during public comment. “These arrest rates are huge compared to their counterparts.”

Johnson’s concerns were echoed by Rice, a school board member. Rice said she wants to see more results from efforts like de-escalation training.

“We need action because unfortunately our children in this system who look like me, and my BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) families, need to see a different outcome than we do,” he added. asked Rice, who is black. “I don’t want to sit here at the table and say ‘very good, that’s great, nice’ and do the same thing for another 12-13 years.”