Police may be coming back to Santa Rosa high schools for the long term
SANTA ROSA, Calif. - Santa Rosa police may be coming back to high school campuses for the long-term.
The Santa Rosa City Schools Board of Trustees voted Wednesday night to create a pilot program to once again assign police officers to school campuses.
The 5-2 vote on the pilot program came after hours of public comment and debate.
Some of the most vocal participants in this school board meeting were students themselves - including several from Montgomery High School.
In March, a 16-year-old Montgomery High School student was stabbed and killed on campus.
"Please show us, through your actions, that you, the board, are listening to us, not just hearing us," said one of the Montgomery High School students at the board meeting.
Several students told board members they surveyed their classmates and found that 90% of the more than 570 students surveyed want to bring police back to campus, permanently.
School police are also called school resource officers, or SRO's for short.
"We understand that there are 10 percent of students who don't feel secure with an SRO on campus. They shouldn't be ignored, they won't be ignored. But we also just can't ignore the 90 percent who felt safer with an SRO on campus, either," another student commented. "There needs to be some sort of compromise."
Santa Rosa High Schools used to have police on campus. In 2020, the board decided to suspend the school police officer program.
After several violent incidents, fights and stabbings in the past nine months, the Superintendent and Santa Rosa City Manager decided to bring police back to the high school campuses on a temporary basis - until winter break. Some students this morning told us they have noticed a difference.
"More adults and more respect in general," said Montgomery High School Senior, Harley Rightsell.
When asked if he liked having police back on campus he said, "I'm definitely ok with them. I feel way safer."
After an hours-long discussion last night, Santa Rosa City Schools Trustees voted 5 to 2 to approve the Superintendent to create a pilot program that brings school police back permanently.
"I feel it could be a very valuable tool to mitigate the problems with school safety," said Trustee Jeremy De La Torre, who introduced the motion for a school police officer pilot program.
"We will go back and discuss what that would look like and see how soon we can get something up and going. School safety is important, and we are not taking any of this conversation lightly," he said.
Some board members were adamant that police should not be part of the solution. One board member cited a U.S. Justice Department study that she says highlighted problems with police on campuses.
"When officers are on campus, the study showed there's an increase in school suspensions and inequitable treatment of students of color and students with disabilities," said Trustee Alegria De La Cruz.
De La Cruz introduced a motion for the district to create a program for alternative education to support students who may not be a good fit for the traditional high school environment.
The board approved that pilot program, too. Both pilot programs will be discussed at the next board meeting in January.