Three school board members are reconsidering their support of a pilot program that would station police officers at Park Ridge-Niles District 64’s middle schools after reviewing a legal opinion about the proposed rules that would govern the officers.
In August, the board unanimously approved the plan to have officers at Emerson Middle School in Niles and Lincoln Middle School in Park Ridge schools for four hours a day, two days per week starting in September, but officers have yet to be assigned to either middle school because Park Ridge and Niles officials, along with the District 64 board, have yet to agree on the rules for the officers.
The board has scheduled a special meeting for 6 p.m. Feb. 20 at Jefferson School, 8200 W. Greendale Ave., to discuss the pilot program and the proposed rules that would govern the officers.
A statement from District 64 said the school resource officer program is “another means to help strengthen family/community partnerships that are essential to supporting District 64’s comprehensive social emotional learning curriculum for all students.”
Board Vice President Rick Biagi at last week’s school board meeting said a 36-page report from the Lisle-based law firm of Ekl, Williams and Provenzale dated Dec. 28 made him question his initial support for the pilot program. The report from the law firm can be found online at www.d64.org/about/sro.
“I don’t know where I am on this issue right now,” Biagi said. “I saw things in that document that could change my mind.”
Board member Eastman Tiu said the district should consider increasing its staff of social workers rather than assigning officers to the district’s middle schools.
“At this point, I’m wondering if the juice is worth the squeeze,” Tiu said. “And so I would say, no.”
Board member Fred Sanchez said that he viewed the school-resource officer program as more of a want than a need for the district.
“Since we first raised this issue, we have, I think, bigger issues on the table, especially the special education program,” Sanchez said.
However, Biagi, Sanchez and Tiu said they would support continued discussion about the program despite their concerns.
Two other board members said they still supported the program.
Board Secretary Tom Sotos said the report did nothing to make him change his mind about the need for school resource officers, which he said would benefit the district.
“I really support the SRO program,” Sotos said.
Board President Anthony Borrelli said he thought the report contained important recommendations and would provide helpful direction for the district while officials work to craft the intergovernmental agreement between Park Ridge, Niles and District 64.
“As a pilot program, it has a lot of merit,” Borrelli said, adding that he believed the agreement needed to be “upgraded and modified” based on some of the recommendations from the law firm.
In November, several parents urged the District 64 board to hold off on stationing officers at Emerson and Lincoln because the officers were not needed and would harm minority students and those with special needs. The report from Ekl, Williams and Provenzale said there is no evidence to suggest that school resource officers have reduced the level of crime or violence at schools — and was unlikely to achieve the goals set for the program by District 64 officials.
“The potential of an armed, uniformed police officer achieving an ‘officer friendly’ persona while also acting in the capacity of disciplinarian is … problematic,” according to the report.
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The “presence of a uniformed police officer in a school creates a sense of fear and triggers stress, particularly in the minority student population,” which can interfere with academic success, according to the law firm’s report.
In addition, studies have argued that that the presence of a school resource officer can result “in the criminalization of normal student misconduct,” according to the Ekl, Williams and Provenzale report.
The benefits of having an officer stationed at schools include the officer’s physical presence, which would reduce the response time in the event of a threat as well as providing a opportunity to serve as a role model or educator, according to the report.
“Studies and the literature observe real risks to the education setting and the rights of parents and students with the involvement of [school resource officers,] and the identifiable benefits, while noble and valid, are not necessarily borne out by existing studies and data,” according to the Ekl, Williams and Provenzale report.
If District 64 moves forward with the pilot program, the rules governing the officers should be revised to allow community representatives to approve the selection of officers picked to work at Emerson and Lincoln middle schools, according to the law firm’s report.
In addition, school resource officers should be “trained in strategies of restorative justice, de-escalation, child and adolescent psychology, crisis prevention and crisis intervention” and assigned to a specific school for a minimum of two years, according to the law firm’s report.
Officers should not be allowed to rotate in and out of the school resource officer position, according to the Ekl, Williams and Provenzale report.
Those agreements should also specify which offenses the school resource officer should not enforce while at the schools rather than a “generic list.”
Those draft agreements as proposed would allow police to engage in law enforcement actions on school property only in the event of a “real and imminent threat” or at the direction of the school’s principal.
In addition, the law firm’s report recommends that the agreement between District 64, Niles and Park Ridge establish a separate process for complaints about the school resource to allow greater accountability than the current system allows for other officers.
Ekl, Williams and Provenzale represents the family of the Naperville North High School junior who committed suicide in January 2017 after being questioned by the police officer assigned to the high school and the school’s dean. The student was asked about an allegation that he had a video of a recent sexual encounter with a female classmate on his phone and that he had possibly played the recording for friends. A lawsuit filed by the teen’s family named Naperville District 203 as well as the Naperville Police Department.
Park Ridge Police Chief Frank Kaminski told the board that he found it “disturbing” that anyone would suggest that the school resource officers would harm District 64 students. The school resource officer program at Maine East and Maine South high schools have been a success, he said.
“The whole idea of the program is to teach people to trust the police,” Kaminski said. “At least give it a chance. I appreciate everyone’s concerns, but give us some trust.”
Heather Cherone is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press. Stacy St. Clair contributed.