For everyone insisting MCPS reinstate SROs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mass shooting issue is not what the SRO program is for. They are not effective response for that problem. They are pretty effective in pushing the drug dealing and gang activity out of schools. It probably just pushes it into the surrounding community but it’s still a win for teachers and kids not to have to deal with it during school hours.

The question of whether too many disciplinary matters are criminalized is an entirely different matter. Police work for us. If we don’t want things to be criminal, then the police won’t arrest people for them. If school admin decide to handle internally, the police won’t make arrests. As a community, we need to provide direction to our schools and police about what we want handled in what way. All removing SROs does it to remove officers who are familiar with the school dynamics and have training in dealing with you, and replace them with whatever officer happens to be closest. Yes, SROs should get more specialized training—replacing them with officers untrained in these matters is not helpful. Knowledge of the community is also helpful—a good SRO will know if there are groups that have an outstanding beef and can be more proactive in monitoring when those groups may cross paths. A big part of commmujity policing is averting crime just by establishing a presence in anticipated trouble spots.

Wow, I think I agree with absolutely everything in this post, except, perhaps, the overly optimistic view that the police are actually responsive to community wishes regarding policing. I think they are responsive to school administrators and teachers, but there isn’t a lot of oversight there, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A student brought a loaded gun to a pgps the other day. Staff member found it, alerted sro, who confiscated it and called police. Seems the presence of sro might have helped police know the situation they were going to encounter. The SRO may also have had knowledge of kid/situation which seems like it would be useful.

These stories touting SROs always lack enough detail to tell whether they were actually necessary to the good outcome. A staff member found the gun - would they not have been able to safely confiscate it without the SRO? Would they not have been able to call police and tell them the situation? If the story was something like "a kid was bragging about their loaded gun so a teacher called police while the SRO engaged the student safely, using their police training" then I would get it, but that's not what it sounds like happened?

Teacher here. I have absolutely no training in guns. I wouldn’t know how to HOLD it properly. Frankly, that’s not my job. SROs have training I don’t have. I want them close, so they are only a minute away when I am alerted to a weapon in my classroom. I don’t want to have to call the police who then have to DRIVE to the school to help out.

Signed - a teacher who has had to call for an SRO to remove a weapon before

Another teacher here who agrees with you. It seems like people really don't want teachers and school administrators to have support for dealing with theae situations. Ok. So we will call the police more often.

People want teachers to have non-cop support for discipline and call cops for crimes.

Currently cops are disciplinarians for thing that are not crimes.

Do you have evidence? Published data suggests otherwise. There were only 27 arrests during the 2019-2020 school year, all for felonious actions or ones that cause significant danger to the school environment. Those are crimes and they need to be treated as crimes. I think we can agree that isn’t a lot for the largest school system on Maryland, and it also suggests they are not arresting for things that are merely disciplinary.

I am a teacher AND a parent. I want administrative support for discipline and SRO support for crimes.

No, there were 27 "physical arrests" in 2019-2020 made by SROs. The report you're citing says "A physical arrest is made by an SRO when the type of crime is serious in nature, a felony offense, or presents an immediate or continuing disruption or threat to the safety of others. A student who is 18 years old or older cannot be charged as a juvenile; therefore, a physical arrest is necessary since the case cannot be referred to the Department of Juvenile Justice. A physical arrest usually entails taking the student into custody, transporting the student to a police facility for processing, and making a notification to the Department of Juvenile Justice if the student is under the age of 18. Physical arrests accounted for 10% of all student arrests by SROs in the 2019-2020 School Year and equate to about 1 per high school."

So, let's say you're correct that those 27 arrests were for felonious actions or ones that cause significant danger (actually with so few, I'd have liked to see a breakdown of exactly what those arrests were for, because the definition appears to have some wiggle room in it, particularly "immediate or continuing disruption"). Those are the crimes you say you want SRO support for, but the report says those cases represent only 10% of student arrests by SROs.

The other 90% (242) were referred to as "paper" arrests, and while these students are not physically taken to the police station, their cases are referred to the Department of Juvenile Services. The transgressions ending up with "paper" arrests are described as "misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts, and vandalism". The report says "In almost all these cases, the student does not end up with a criminal record". They are very handy with exact figures elsewhere but we are left to wonder what "almost all" means here. Then there's a third category, for which they do not share numbers, called "civil citations", described as "minor violations that typically carry a monetary penalty. The vast majority of civil citations written are for alcohol, tobacco, and minor CDS offenses." CDS is not defined and the monetary penalties are not described.

You might say all of those things are crimes too - assault, theft, vandalism, illegal substances, CDS (whatever that is). But when we're speaking about children, what are we defining as assault, theft, vandalism, and who decides whether a fist fight is a crime worthy of referral to Juvenile Justice vs a disciplinary matter administrators can handle? I don't think we know at all how many of these events were "merely disciplinary".

I read those paragraphs prior to posting the data. My point still stands. 27 arrests in a school system with over 160,000 students does not support the initial claim that “cops are disciplinarians for things that are not crimes.” Even if we look at the paragraph I didn’t mention, the “paper arrests,” you’ll notice they are STILL criminal activities in nature: assaults, thefts, vandalism, etc. We want police in school to assist with crimes. These are crimes. As for the “almost all,” it comes as no surprise to me that in some rare instances a student may end with a criminal record after committing a crime. I suppose you give no credit to the fact that the same report states most students with paper arrests don’t end up with a record? That right there suggests that an SRO’s presence in a school does not automatically lead to tons of juvenile records.

Administrators have other transgressions to deal with: academic dishonesty, tardiness, basic disrespect, technology misuse, etc. Those are disciplinary issues a school can and should handle. The ones above? They should be the domain of an SRO.

Assaults, thefts, and vandalism are crimes by definition, but no 15 year old should be arrested, on paper or otherwise, for carving their name into a desk, or getting into your average, no deadly weapons involved fistfight, or stealing the stapler from the teacher's desk, but those could all be defined as crimes, if one was so inclined. I'm trying to think of a "mere disciplinary" issue that _couldn't_ be defined as a crime.

You’re assuming those assaults, thefts, and vandalism “paper crimes” were minor. I’ve taught for 20 years. I handle the minor incidents myself. I’ve never seen anybody call the SRO for things as minor as graffiti or a stolen stapler. Heck, I wouldn’t even involve admin for that. Unfortunately, students do things that can harm others. I have called admin and the SRO for fights, for a knife, and for major theft. Actions, particularly harmful ones, have consequences.

Having an SRO doesn’t mean ALL discipline goes through them. It means they are there when the big things happen.

And thank god there are police around schools to threaten to beat five-year-olds when they get out of line. Who will protect us from the dangerous kindergartners?

You know, there are bad apples everywhere. Should we get rid of teachers because several have molested children? We could just virtual school so no teacher has the opportunity to ever molest a child.

Instead of getting rid of the SRO program completely, they made modifications, which I think is great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

Again, we can have both.. SROs and more mental health professionals. Indeed, there are no easy answers, but that doesn't mean we should do nothing but ponder the issue.

MCPS hasn't been able to fill the many open spots we have for mental health professionals.

Judging by how so many therapists have a long wait list, I doubt MCPS will be able to fill all the positions.

And we definitely shouldn't lower the standards and just hire a warm body to fill it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mass shooting issue is not what the SRO program is for. They are not effective response for that problem. They are pretty effective in pushing the drug dealing and gang activity out of schools. It probably just pushes it into the surrounding community but it’s still a win for teachers and kids not to have to deal with it during school hours.

The question of whether too many disciplinary matters are criminalized is an entirely different matter. Police work for us. If we don’t want things to be criminal, then the police won’t arrest people for them. If school admin decide to handle internally, the police won’t make arrests. As a community, we need to provide direction to our schools and police about what we want handled in what way. All removing SROs does it to remove officers who are familiar with the school dynamics and have training in dealing with you, and replace them with whatever officer happens to be closest. Yes, SROs should get more specialized training—replacing them with officers untrained in these matters is not helpful. Knowledge of the community is also helpful—a good SRO will know if there are groups that have an outstanding beef and can be more proactive in monitoring when those groups may cross paths. A big part of commmujity policing is averting crime just by establishing a presence in anticipated trouble spots.

Wow, I think I agree with absolutely everything in this post, except, perhaps, the overly optimistic view that the police are actually responsive to community wishes regarding policing. I think they are responsive to school administrators and teachers, but there isn’t a lot of oversight there, either.

My point was more that we as a community decide what is a criminal violation. If we don’t think property damage of under $50 by minors should be a criminal offense, we can write the laws that way. If we say something is a criminal offense, and someone calls the police to report a criminal offense, we can’t really blame the police for treating it like a criminal offense. Prosecutors are the ones that are supposed to exercise discretion in deciding whether to let something go. Police sometimes do too, but that’s not really their role. In fact, they often get in trouble for not processing a report of a crime if they decide it’s not a serious crime.
It also irks me a little when people use national data….we have one of the most educated, trained and well-paid forces in the country. (Obviously not perfect and there are still boneheads like the two who became infamous when called yo respond to an absconding ES kid). But I have not seen any data suggesting that SROs in MCPS were papering kids for typical kid stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A student brought a loaded gun to a pgps the other day. Staff member found it, alerted sro, who confiscated it and called police. Seems the presence of sro might have helped police know the situation they were going to encounter. The SRO may also have had knowledge of kid/situation which seems like it would be useful.

These stories touting SROs always lack enough detail to tell whether they were actually necessary to the good outcome. A staff member found the gun - would they not have been able to safely confiscate it without the SRO? Would they not have been able to call police and tell them the situation? If the story was something like "a kid was bragging about their loaded gun so a teacher called police while the SRO engaged the student safely, using their police training" then I would get it, but that's not what it sounds like happened?

Teacher here. I have absolutely no training in guns. I wouldn’t know how to HOLD it properly. Frankly, that’s not my job. SROs have training I don’t have. I want them close, so they are only a minute away when I am alerted to a weapon in my classroom. I don’t want to have to call the police who then have to DRIVE to the school to help out.

Signed - a teacher who has had to call for an SRO to remove a weapon before

Another teacher here who agrees with you. It seems like people really don't want teachers and school administrators to have support for dealing with theae situations. Ok. So we will call the police more often.

People want teachers to have non-cop support for discipline and call cops for crimes.

Currently cops are disciplinarians for thing that are not crimes.

Do you have evidence? Published data suggests otherwise. There were only 27 arrests during the 2019-2020 school year, all for felonious actions or ones that cause significant danger to the school environment. Those are crimes and they need to be treated as crimes. I think we can agree that isn’t a lot for the largest school system on Maryland, and it also suggests they are not arresting for things that are merely disciplinary.

I am a teacher AND a parent. I want administrative support for discipline and SRO support for crimes.

No, there were 27 "physical arrests" in 2019-2020 made by SROs. The report you're citing says "A physical arrest is made by an SRO when the type of crime is serious in nature, a felony offense, or presents an immediate or continuing disruption or threat to the safety of others. A student who is 18 years old or older cannot be charged as a juvenile; therefore, a physical arrest is necessary since the case cannot be referred to the Department of Juvenile Justice. A physical arrest usually entails taking the student into custody, transporting the student to a police facility for processing, and making a notification to the Department of Juvenile Justice if the student is under the age of 18. Physical arrests accounted for 10% of all student arrests by SROs in the 2019-2020 School Year and equate to about 1 per high school."

So, let's say you're correct that those 27 arrests were for felonious actions or ones that cause significant danger (actually with so few, I'd have liked to see a breakdown of exactly what those arrests were for, because the definition appears to have some wiggle room in it, particularly "immediate or continuing disruption"). Those are the crimes you say you want SRO support for, but the report says those cases represent only 10% of student arrests by SROs.

The other 90% (242) were referred to as "paper" arrests, and while these students are not physically taken to the police station, their cases are referred to the Department of Juvenile Services. The transgressions ending up with "paper" arrests are described as "misdemeanors such as assaults, thefts, and vandalism". The report says "In almost all these cases, the student does not end up with a criminal record". They are very handy with exact figures elsewhere but we are left to wonder what "almost all" means here. Then there's a third category, for which they do not share numbers, called "civil citations", described as "minor violations that typically carry a monetary penalty. The vast majority of civil citations written are for alcohol, tobacco, and minor CDS offenses." CDS is not defined and the monetary penalties are not described.

You might say all of those things are crimes too - assault, theft, vandalism, illegal substances, CDS (whatever that is). But when we're speaking about children, what are we defining as assault, theft, vandalism, and who decides whether a fist fight is a crime worthy of referral to Juvenile Justice vs a disciplinary matter administrators can handle? I don't think we know at all how many of these events were "merely disciplinary".

I read those paragraphs prior to posting the data. My point still stands. 27 arrests in a school system with over 160,000 students does not support the initial claim that “cops are disciplinarians for things that are not crimes.” Even if we look at the paragraph I didn’t mention, the “paper arrests,” you’ll notice they are STILL criminal activities in nature: assaults, thefts, vandalism, etc. We want police in school to assist with crimes. These are crimes. As for the “almost all,” it comes as no surprise to me that in some rare instances a student may end with a criminal record after committing a crime. I suppose you give no credit to the fact that the same report states most students with paper arrests don’t end up with a record? That right there suggests that an SRO’s presence in a school does not automatically lead to tons of juvenile records.

Administrators have other transgressions to deal with: academic dishonesty, tardiness, basic disrespect, technology misuse, etc. Those are disciplinary issues a school can and should handle. The ones above? They should be the domain of an SRO.

Assaults, thefts, and vandalism are crimes by definition, but no 15 year old should be arrested, on paper or otherwise, for carving their name into a desk, or getting into your average, no deadly weapons involved fistfight, or stealing the stapler from the teacher's desk, but those could all be defined as crimes, if one was so inclined. I'm trying to think of a "mere disciplinary" issue that _couldn't_ be defined as a crime.

You’re assuming those assaults, thefts, and vandalism “paper crimes” were minor. I’ve taught for 20 years. I handle the minor incidents myself. I’ve never seen anybody call the SRO for things as minor as graffiti or a stolen stapler. Heck, I wouldn’t even involve admin for that. Unfortunately, students do things that can harm others. I have called admin and the SRO for fights, for a knife, and for major theft. Actions, particularly harmful ones, have consequences.

Having an SRO doesn’t mean ALL discipline goes through them. It means they are there when the big things happen.

And thank god there are police around schools to threaten to beat five-year-olds when they get out of line. Who will protect us from the dangerous kindergartners?

You know, there are bad apples everywhere. Should we get rid of teachers because several have molested children? We could just virtual school so no teacher has the opportunity to ever molest a child.

Instead of getting rid of the SRO program completely, they made modifications, which I think is great.

The officer that PP referenced was not an SRO and is a good example of why we need an SRO program. That officer had no business being around children. All officers should get more training in dealing with special populations—including kids, the disabled, mentally ill, immigrants, gay and transgender citizens, etc. But the SRO program is designed to pull those with an aptitude for it and give them additional training. I don’t know why people wouldn’t want that.

[Anonymous]

Theft is not typical kid stuff, unless it’s a four year old. And even then, you don’t ignore it. When there’s no consequences, it just gets worse and worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The mass shooting issue is not what the SRO program is for. They are not effective response for that problem. They are pretty effective in pushing the drug dealing and gang activity out of schools. It probably just pushes it into the surrounding community but it’s still a win for teachers and kids not to have to deal with it during school hours.

The question of whether too many disciplinary matters are criminalized is an entirely different matter. Police work for us. If we don’t want things to be criminal, then the police won’t arrest people for them. If school admin decide to handle internally, the police won’t make arrests. As a community, we need to provide direction to our schools and police about what we want handled in what way. All removing SROs does it to remove officers who are familiar with the school dynamics and have training in dealing with you, and replace them with whatever officer happens to be closest. Yes, SROs should get more specialized training—replacing them with officers untrained in these matters is not helpful. Knowledge of the community is also helpful—a good SRO will know if there are groups that have an outstanding beef and can be more proactive in monitoring when those groups may cross paths. A big part of commmujity policing is averting crime just by establishing a presence in anticipated trouble spots.

Wow, I think I agree with absolutely everything in this post, except, perhaps, the overly optimistic view that the police are actually responsive to community wishes regarding policing. I think they are responsive to school administrators and teachers, but there isn’t a lot of oversight there, either.

My point was more that we as a community decide what is a criminal violation. If we don’t think property damage of under $50 by minors should be a criminal offense, we can write the laws that way. If we say something is a criminal offense, and someone calls the police to report a criminal offense, we can’t really blame the police for treating it like a criminal offense. Prosecutors are the ones that are supposed to exercise discretion in deciding whether to let something go. Police sometimes do too, but that’s not really their role. In fact, they often get in trouble for not processing a report of a crime if they decide it’s not a serious crime.
It also irks me a little when people use national data….we have one of the most educated, trained and well-paid forces in the country. (Obviously not perfect and there are still boneheads like the two who became infamous when called yo respond to an absconding ES kid). But I have not seen any data suggesting that SROs in MCPS were papering kids for typical kid stuff.

Kids stealing need consequences. You look the other way with your kids and that's why they behave as they do and that's why you want a free pass.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Theft is not typical kid stuff, unless it’s a four year old. And even then, you don’t ignore it. When there’s no consequences, it just gets worse and worse.

Shoplifting is very much a white girlfriend teen thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

Unless they go to a 4 year college and a MSW they are I’ll equipped yo do the job they are asked to do.

They need yo sign non disclosure agreements and take away their arrest power.

Then they can stay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

Unless they go to a 4 year college and a MSW they are I’ll equipped yo do the job they are asked to do.

They need yo sign non disclosure agreements and take away their arrest power.

Then they can stay.

They don’t need a college degree and a MSW to do the job they are assigned to do. I can tell I’m not the only poster on this thread who is tired and angry about violence and threats to schools. SROs are part of the solution since their purpose and training is directly about responding to threats. MSW can help by disrupting negative thoughts before they become actions, but if that doesn’t work we need SROs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

Unless they go to a 4 year college and a MSW they are I’ll equipped yo do the job they are asked to do.

They need yo sign non disclosure agreements and take away their arrest power.

Then they can stay.

They don’t need a college degree and a MSW to do the job they are assigned to do. I can tell I’m not the only poster on this thread who is tired and angry about violence and threats to schools. SROs are part of the solution since their purpose and training is directly about responding to threats. MSW can help by disrupting negative thoughts before they become actions, but if that doesn’t work we need SROs.

Yes they do.

Teachers have 4 year degrees, counselors have 4 year degrees, we need educated people dealing with children.

If they need to respond to a threat sit in the parking lot and respond to a threat.

SROs don’t stop threats they make threats more frequently and more dangerous.

We need MSWs and if that doesn’t work we need discipline and if that doesn’t work we need outside medical evaluation and if that doesn’t work we need private placement. We don’t need SROs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

Unless they go to a 4 year college and a MSW they are I’ll equipped yo do the job they are asked to do.

They need yo sign non disclosure agreements and take away their arrest power.

Then they can stay.

They don’t need a college degree and a MSW to do the job they are assigned to do. I can tell I’m not the only poster on this thread who is tired and angry about violence and threats to schools. SROs are part of the solution since their purpose and training is directly about responding to threats. MSW can help by disrupting negative thoughts before they become actions, but if that doesn’t work we need SROs.

Yes they do.

Teachers have 4 year degrees, counselors have 4 year degrees, we need educated people dealing with children.

If they need to respond to a threat sit in the parking lot and respond to a threat.

SROs don’t stop threats they make threats more frequently and more dangerous.

We need MSWs and if that doesn’t work we need discipline and if that doesn’t work we need outside medical evaluation and if that doesn’t work we need private placement. We don’t need SROs.

“Educated people” can mean having the knowledge and skill set to work a particular job. I’m a teacher. I have advanced degrees related to my subject matter. I’m highly educated, but if you put me in a hospital I no longer have a relevant education. I’m also not educated in how to handle extreme threats. You say we need educated people around students. By that logic, we need SROs to fill in where my skill set stops.

SROs are educated in a way that is relevant to their job. Many (most) have college degrees, but ALL are educated with the knowledge and skills relevant to the tasks they perform.

You have no proof that SROs “make threats more frequently and more dangerous.”

We do agree that we need MSWs in schools. As other posters have said, they would be part of the team… teachers, counselors, admin, SROs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't want SRO's what is your solution to what is going on in the schools? I want my kids safe.

Yeah, I want my kids safe, too. This response illustrates the problem. It feels intolerable to do nothing and so we want to rush to do Something, even if that Something has been proven to be worse than doing nothing. There is not an easy answer to this and that is the horrible truth. I'm not advocating giving up but soothing our anxieties with knee jerk solutions is not the way forward.

SROs aren’t knee jerk solutions. I’ve worked with SROs since 2003. The county isn’t starting from scratch here; instead, there is a long-standing relationship between the county and MCPD that can be supported and refined.

I agree with you that there is no easy answer, but I firmly believe SROs remain part of the solution we are looking for. They come with training that supports the safe operation of a school. What they provide can’t be replicated by a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator. I wish our reality didn’t include crimes and violence within schools, but it’s there.

Unless they go to a 4 year college and a MSW they are I’ll equipped yo do the job they are asked to do.

They need yo sign non disclosure agreements and take away their arrest power.

Then they can stay.

They don’t need a college degree and a MSW to do the job they are assigned to do. I can tell I’m not the only poster on this thread who is tired and angry about violence and threats to schools. SROs are part of the solution since their purpose and training is directly about responding to threats. MSW can help by disrupting negative thoughts before they become actions, but if that doesn’t work we need SROs.

Yes they do.

Teachers have 4 year degrees, counselors have 4 year degrees, we need educated people dealing with children.

If they need to respond to a threat sit in the parking lot and respond to a threat.

SROs don’t stop threats they make threats more frequently and more dangerous.

We need MSWs and if that doesn’t work we need discipline and if that doesn’t work we need outside medical evaluation and if that doesn’t work we need private placement. We don’t need SROs.

“Educated people” can mean having the knowledge and skill set to work a particular job. I’m a teacher. I have advanced degrees related to my subject matter. I’m highly educated, but if you put me in a hospital I no longer have a relevant education. I’m also not educated in how to handle extreme threats. You say we need educated people around students. By that logic, we need SROs to fill in where my skill set stops.

SROs are educated in a way that is relevant to their job. Many (most) have college degrees, but ALL are educated with the knowledge and skills relevant to the tasks they perform.

You have no proof that SROs “make threats more frequently and more dangerous.”

We do agree that we need MSWs in schools. As other posters have said, they would be part of the team… teachers, counselors, admin, SROs.

So we agree you are not educated on what makes schools safe, glad you can admit that.

Watch the video posted in the OP. That’s your 1st step to being more educated.

I am intimate aware of SRO trying, it’s not the right training.