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Police in Delaware Schools – How Necessary Are They?

During the 2019-2020 school year, at least nine Delaware school districts – Red Clay Consolidated, Christina, Milford, Cape Henlopen, Lake Forest, Woodbridge, Smyrna, Indian River, and Caesar Rodney – employed at least 30 school resource officers (SROs) throughout the state. While most of these school districts uneventfully renewed their SRO programs for the next year, both the Red Clay Consolidated School Districts and the Christina School District recently considered removing their programs.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), SROs are “sworn law enforcement officers responsible for safety and crime prevention in schools.” While their primary purpose is to respond to calls within their assigned school(s), document incidents, and make arrests if necessary, SROs are encouraged to also serve as emergency managers, informal counselors, and educators.

Proponents of the current setup claim that SROs in Delaware schools help to keep students safe, “present a positive role model and mentor to the school community” and represent “an effort to establish community links between education and law enforcement.” However, numerous studies have shown that, in addition to not making schools safer, the presence of SROs contributes to other ongoing issues, including an increase in arrests for non-criminal behavior such as disorderly conduct and a disproportionate rate of Black student arrests and jail sentences.

In Red Clay Consolidated School District, the resolution received two hours of public comment. Students described feeling “on edge” seeing armed law enforcement in school, school psychologists and educators shared examples of students – particularly students with special needs – repeatedly having their rights violated by SROs due to their lack of training in child development, and the ACLU of Delaware issued a statement presenting research indicating that school-based police negatively impact student achievement, particularly affecting Black and Brown students.

Last week, the school boards for both the Red Clay Consolidated School District and the Christina School District rejected proposals to end contracts with local and state police and chose to keep SROs in their schools next year. Both boards stated that they  need to continue gathering data and public input for discussion; the Red Clay board stated a need for the district to improve equity and social support in schools, and the Christina board requested monthly updates of SRO data for further review.

Those for and against SROs seem to agree about one thing – Delaware schools need more support for counselors, school psychologists, and other student resources. While the American School Counselor Association recommends one counselor available for every 250 students, last year Delaware’s schools only employed one counselor for every 427 students (or one for every 550 students in elementary schools).
 


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