When states like , the idea is to keep kids safe.
But as the arrest of two 6-year-olds in a Florida school in October has shown, sometimes one threat to the students is the officers themselves.
Instead of being protected, these . Each one faced as a result of behavioral outbursts at school, including one instance in which one of the children .
While the arrests of the two elementary students in Orlando are not everyday occurrences, they do reflect a that suggests cops in schools — they are formally known as school resource officers, or SROs — can take what would otherwise be a routine school disciplinary situation and escalate it to a whole different level.
I base that assertion on who has studied school discipline, school safety, and the role of school resource officers (SROs) in elementary schools.
My work sheds light on the potential unintended consequences of school resource officers — as well as ways that school leaders can prevent situations like the arrests that unfolded in Orlando.
A growing presence of police in schools
School resource officers, who are sworn officers with full arrest powers, are increasingly common in primary schools. Between 2005 and 2015, the . Now, nearly one in three elementary schools has one of these officers at least part-time.
This trend is set to continue as states like and passed legislation in 2018 to increase the presence of police in schools.
Responding to student behavior
Certainly, elementary schools must occasionally deal with violent behavior. In fact, my colleagues and I have found that as many as each year. Indeed, in the case in Orlando, one of the 6-year-olds was arrested in part for .
What鈥檚 increasingly changing, however, is how schools respond to these violent incidents. The presence of police in schools has been shown to . For example, prior research has found that police agencies that get funding for school police . This may be because the presence of police can to one that is more about punishment than it is about teaching students why their behavior is wrong and what they can do to make amends.
In our work, we have found that even when school district policy specifies that school resource officers should not be involved in discipline, many of the officers interpret this policy differently. For example, school resource officers may use their proximity to deter misbehavior, may pull misbehaving students aside to talk, or may be present while school personnel interrogate or search students.
School officials have a than law enforcement. Similarly, school officials can interrogate students without providing a — the legally required notice of the right to remain silent or have legal counsel that police must give when they have someone in custody. So, if officers are present during interrogations or searches in schools, it could enable them to bypass legal protections that exist outside of schools.
School resource officers are trained primarily as law enforcement agents. It should, therefore, be little surprise that they sometimes .
Keeping school police in check
Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala . She said she refuses to 鈥渒nowingly play any role in the school-to-prison pipeline.鈥�
The local police agency has , citing violation of their policy requiring supervisor approval of arrests of children below 12 years of age.
While these actions demonstrate a commitment by state and local leaders to avoid repeats of this incident, there are other ways that schools can prevent student misconduct from ever reaching the point of an arrest.
Our work suggests that schools and law enforcement agencies should have clear, mutually agreed upon guidelines for when school resource officers become involved in student misbehavior.
In interviews with school resource officers, we find that many are responsive to district policy that prohibits involvement in discipline. Yet, nationally, around with school resource officers do not include language around school discipline or arrests in formal agreements with law enforcement. Based on our research, we conclude that school resource officers should only get involved in cases of very serious legal violations such as a weapon or acts or threats of violence and should take into consideration the age of students involved and circumstances of the situation.
Educators need training
We have found that many times, a school resource officer鈥檚 involvement in student discipline comes as a result of pressure from teachers and administrators to be involved. For example, in our ongoing interviews with school resource officers and school personnel, we encounter a number of principals and teachers who specifically ask the school resource officer to lecture students on misconduct, be present for disciplinary hearings, and, in some cases, go to a classroom to handle a defiant student instead of leaving that work to the principal.
Instead of asking school resource officers to help out with matters of discipline, in my view, teachers and school administrators should be given training and resources that equip them to respond to student misconduct without relying on school police. In a recent national report, almost 50 percent of teachers reported having to put up with misbehavior due to a lack of administrative support. Only 6 percent of teachers thought schools should hire additional police to help with student behavior. Instead, they preferred that resources be put to additional mental health professionals, teaching assistants, and social workers.
Similarly, school resource officers should be given training that emphasizes the developmental stages of students and how to respond to student misconduct. As others have noted, training for school resource officers is . Nationally, 93 percent of school resource officers report training for active shooters. However, only about one third report training in child trauma or the teenage brain.
It is critical to keep students safe in school. That said, districts should carefully consider whether police should be in schools and, if present, what role they should play in student misconduct.
