As a result of an incident at one of our schools, the question of the need for School Resource Officers has once again been raised.
Question: What is your view of how School Resources Officers are currently used in schools and how do you believe behavior challenges should be addressed?
4 out of 8 candidates responded
Laura Clancey
“The recent incident just happened to get a lot of media coverage. I have been very open that I support having SRO’s in schools. I know first hand that we could have had some major school incidents if it was not for the collaboration with the Worcester Police Department. The key is having trained officers who are willing to build relationships with our students and staff.”
Sue Mailman
“I am waiting to see the new safety plan developed by the City Manager’s school safety committee. Everyone should feel safe in school, which is why in reviewing the plan, I will be most interested in the response of the communities heavily impacted by past safety practices and those most affected by discipline and violence in schools.”
Tracy O'Connell Novick
“Again this week, we had confirmed that the model of police in schools is broken, this time from research released by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University which examined civil rights data from the 2013-14, 2015-16, and 2017-18 waves of the U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection from all public schools in the U.S. It is the first such research to use information from all public schools in the country. To quote their summary directly:
We find that SROs do effectively reduce some forms of violence in schools, but do not prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents. We also find that SROs intensify the use of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and arrests of students. These effects are consistently over two times larger for Black students than White students. Finally, we observe that SROs increase chronic absenteeism, particularly for students with disabilities.
We find that SROs do effectively reduce some forms of violence in schools, but do not prevent school shootings or gun-related incidents. We also find that SROs intensify the use of suspensions, expulsions, police referrals, and arrests of students. These effects are consistently over two times larger for Black students than White students. Finally, we observe that SROs increase chronic absenteeism, particularly for students with disabilities.
What we need is real investment in school climate. I asked, for example, this year for the administration to report back on what it would take and how much it would cost to eliminate suspension of students under grade 3 in schools. This was not embraced by administration, but this is the work that we should be doing. We need schools to be safe for students and for staff, but that means for all students and staff. We need actual investment—not simply lip service—to restorative justice in schools, which has been demonstrated to work in other districts. We need smaller classes and better support outside and around the classroom. We need to start questions about student discipline with the ‘why’ of the student getting here, and we need to work from there.”
Molly O. McCullough
“Since my time on the committee, I have been supportive of our SROs in the capacity of being positive community conduits and not the primary disciplinarians in the schools. However, as time moves forward it is important that we take a step back and review how we are utilizing SROs in our schools and ensure that we are utilizing them in a way that is beneficial to the students, the school community and the SROs themselves. I don’t believe that there is one person running for office that would say the safety of our schools is not a priority to them.
I believe that we can work together with the police and the community to develop a plan where we can do more community and relationship building utilizing our SROs and maintaining safe schools at the same time. I look forward to working together with the City Manager and the Chief on the plan that they develop.”
Shanel Soucy
Waiting for response from the candidate.
