By Julian Portilla, Champlain College Center for Mediation and Dialogue, and Emily Hecker, WSD Communication Director
At a Special Board Meeting on April 7, 2021, attended by approximately 125 people, more than 60 individuals from the Winooski community, including parents, current students, alumni, and school staff members shared their thoughts, experiences, and feelings about the School Resource Officer (SRO) program in the WSD.
After four hours of public comments, the School Board voted 4-1 to retain the district’s current SRO program through the 2021/2022 school year. Within the same motion, the board approved the commission of a Multi-Stakeholder Group (MSG) to further examine the SRO program in the district and research school safety models. Read more about the April 7 meeting at this link: bit.ly/April7WSDMeeting
At the May 12, 2021 Board meeting, the WSD Board approved a proposal by Julian Portilla, the Director of the Champlain College Center for Mediation and Dialogue, to create the Multi-Stakeholder Group and provide recommendations about school safety models.
Julian Portilla shared the following progress updates about the MSG in July. To read the full report presentation visit: bit.ly/MSGSROstatusupdate
Mr. Portilla had conducted 12 interviews with school and city officials, parents, the WSD Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), Winooski Police Department, restorative justice experts, and other Winooski residents.There are additional interviews scheduled with students, liaisons, SRO, parents of WSD students as of this update. He asked each individual the same questions about their connection to the school and their concerns about safety and security at the school district.
Among the group there was universal praise for the city and the school environment and community, including that the WSD is the “Best school district ever. Hands down.”
When discussing what safety meant to each individual, people responded almost universally that they were not concerned with threats from inside the school for the physical safety of children. Rather, the responses were most concerned with threats from outside the school such as shooters. People were most concerned with ensuring the proper systems and protocols were in place to guard against those threats.
However, there were people concerned with the emotional impact of an armed, uniformed officer in the building, especially among older students of color. Conversations about safety inside the school led to conversations about discipline and approaches to managing behavior in school. Some people were concerned about the potential disproportionate impacts of discipline on students of color and therefore their sense of safety at school.
When asked about how the SRO affects safety and the feeling of safety, the majority of people mentioned the usefulness of the SRO’s role in ensuring awareness and communication between the school and police department, especially in instances of police contact with a child’s family.
For those who were not comfortable with an armed officer in school, responses tended to be appreciative of the individual in the SRO role but also wondered whether these responsibilities could be accomplished by other people or groups.
Members of the Multi-Stakeholder Group shared their ideas for improving the safety of students. The idea behind many of these suggestions was to preserve the aspects of the SRO that provide safety and security to students and staff while reducing the time of having an armed, uniformed officer in the building. Many suggestions were an attempt at addressing the concerns of people on all sides of the argument.
The responses fall into a few different categories:
- Keep the SRO but change the amount of time in the building.
- Transfer the duties of the SRO to either a new individual or new group.
- Increase the skills and training of existing staff and administration.
Next Steps:
While many solutions have been put forward, before discussing solutions and changes, the MSG will need to invest time to understand the work of the current SRO, the concerns of all relevant parties with regards to security, analyze relevant data and compare models used elsewhere before discussing changes to the SRO position.
In order to fulfill its charge, the MSG will hold conversations with various segments of the community, experts, other school districts, restorative justice experts and law enforcement. Regular updates will be provided to the board and will regularly post meeting times and minutes for anyone wishing to learn more about the process.
Mr. Portilla will complete nine more interviews scheduled with students, home-school liaisons, the current WSD SRO, and parents of WSD students. He will also develop a list of participants to represent specific groups. The MSG held their first meeting in August. After that, they will hold bi-weekly meetings in September, October and November in order to provide recommendations to the board about the SRO program for budget finalization.