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Anonymous wrote:My crystal ball says an SRO would have prevented this tragedy. Yours says otherwise. The truth is, we'll never know.
An SRO has never prevented a tragedy.
Wrong. I’m a high school teacher who has witnessed a tragedy being averted by an SRO. I had a student with a huge knife, which he brought to school to threaten/hurt another. The SRO talked him down and retrieved the knife.
So yes, it happens. We just don’t advertise it when it does.
I don't doubt that some SROs have done good, even averting incidents.
But OP and others seem to be asserting that the presence of an SRO would have prevented this specific tragedy, and that
SROs overall are a net good for the school environment, justifying the cost and negative effects. Neither of those things has proven to be true.
Having worked in both middle and high schools for a long time, I strongly disagree. I doubt you've been in them long enough to see some of the violent fights that have been averted or strong, behavior disordered kids who have very poor impulse control and direct their anger towards innocent kids and teachers. Who do you think should intervene?
I'm not sure what is to disagree with. I acknowledge and am grateful for those instances when SROs have helped avert violence. But the question remains whether those instances outweigh the documented negative impacts and justify the overall expense. Most studies that I have seen indicate that they do not.
PP here. If we are going to allow students with extremely aggressive and violent behaviors to walk the halls of our public schools and not be educated in separate facilities as used to be the norm, then we need to be prepared for what might happen. The average teacher (male or female) isn't strong enough to protect the other kids when the students I mentioned lose control. If it were your child who is being hit, kicked, battered, etc, then I think you would believe it's worth the expense. Otherwise, we need to have an alternative placement/plan for those who have a known history of the behaviors I described.
I think we might be talking past each other. I absolutely agree that violence in schools is a problem that needs to be addressed. (I do question how you might define and segregate "students with aggressive and violent behaviors", but that is another conversation.)
I also think that any solution to that problem needs to not exacerbate other issues within our education system and society as a whole. Any solution needs to have a reasonable monetary cost, so that other aspects of education do not suffer. And any other solution needs to have demonstrable efficacy.
SROs
in theory and in a vacuum make sense. In practice and based on existing research, they may not.
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-resource-officer-sro-duties-effectiveness
https://www.wested.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/JPRC-Police-Schools-Brief.pdf
And while there are certainly instances of SROs preventing violence, they are proven ineffective at preventing shootings- the subject of this thread. They also have significant other negative impacts.
"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."
https://www.edworkingpapers.com/sites/default/files/ai21-476.pdf
The question is whether they do more good than harm OVERALL. From what I have seen, it does not seem that they do.
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