Community Consolidated Elementary District 21 will continue to station police officers in its three middle schools.
With a 4-3 vote, the school board instructed superintendent Kate Hyland to prioritize the $103,000 it will take to keep Buffalo Grove and Wheeling officers in the halls of Holmes, Cooper and London middle schools. The officers are there part-time, usually talking with students to build rapport and provide a sense of security.
Much of what divided the board members during their April 21 debate was whether a sense of security was worth the money, as well as what the district might lose by not spending those funds elsewhere.
“It’s an economic decision,” board member Pamela Becker Dean said. “I would let them go over teachers.”
“I just cannot fathom cutting such a valuable resource,” came the opposing view, from board member Jeff Battinus. “It’s just not worth it.”
At the start of the discussion, board member Phil Pritzker foresaw a tough decision.
“This is not a topic that has much middle ground, apparently,” he said. “If we were a district that was awash in funds, this isn’t an issue we’d be talking about. But that is not the case.”
District 21 currently pays the Wheeling Police Department for an officer who splits time between Holmes and London, and the Buffalo Grove Police Department for an officer who spends half-days at Cooper. During the board’s March 17 meeting, the board discussed what else could be done with that money – particularly funding teachers’ positions.
At both meetings, Hyland stressed to the board that she and her staff had been pleased with their school resource officers, and needed to consider cutting their positions only out of financial necessity.
“We feel very pleased with the relationship that we have, and we hope that would continue,” she told them.
It will continue, but it will be against the wishes of board president Bill Harrison, one of the three who wanted to spend the money elsewhere. He acknowledged that District 21 officials, like many other school districts, occasionally find marijuana, alcohol and e-cigarettes in the halls, but he said teachers were equipped to handle those matters.
“Do we need a police officer to handle those matters? No,” he said. “I don’t see the benefit of perceived security, and that’s really all we have, is a perception.”
Board member Arlen Gould voted to keep the resource officers, and said that with creative negotiations, the district might even be able to find a way to afford additional police time.
“I would like us to get into it more, in fact,” he said. “I’ve seen it in Chicago.”
Twitter @RonnieAtPioneer