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School Resource Officer Agreement Suspended In January, the Portland Public School Board unanimously voted to suspend their agreement with the City of Portland and Portland Police Bureau (PPB) to hire nine School Resource Officers (SROs) for $1.2 million per year. The agreement was initially approved in December 2018 (PPR #76). The Board Chair and Superintendent met with Mayor Wheeler on Jan. 14 to discuss concerns over the agreement. The Board felt they were given a false deadline for the agreement and led to believe if they didn't quickly approve the agreement, PPB would withdraw their SROs and non-SRO officers would arrest more students. The School Board admitted they had rushed the vote, even with a large and growing outcry against the agreement and without taking proper measures to consult the community, students, and school staff. They promised to hold more meetings regarding SROs (Portland Mercury, January 30).
A report by PPB Strategic Services Division for the 2017-2018 school year included a break-down of police calls for service and arrests based on age, location, and time but neglected race demographics. The data show SROs were 41% more likely than non-SRO officers to make an arrest of a minor per call for service on school property during school hours. In December, the ACLU did an in-depth study of SROs in Nebraska, "From the Classroom to the Courtroom." They found marginalized groups were significantly more likely (black students were more than twice as likely) to be arrested than their white, straight, cisgender counterparts. The ACLU reports "there is very limited data on school police and their effectiveness at keeping schools safe," despite increased police presence, and the decrease of violent offenses by 82% between 1992 and 2014. School shootings only affect 0.1% of U.S. schools. With this information in mind, PPB should be decreasing their SROs, not increasing them on the school district's dime. |
May, 2019
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Portland Copwatch Portland Copwatch is a grassroots, volunteer organization promoting police accountability through citizen action.
People's Police Report
#77 Table of Contents
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The Mercury
reported on student arrest data from the City Budget Office (March 6). The report indicated
PPB arrested 16 black students and eight white students at school during school hours. The arrest
sample size is small but given Portland student demographics, black students were approximately
11 times more likely to be arrested at school than their white counterparts. When PPB presented
their case to the School Board in December 2018, they did not include the data broken down by
race.