The Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board of Education on May 20 endorsed a mission statement to guide a pilot school resource officer program that would assign uniformed officers to Lincoln and Emerson middle schools starting in August.
The officers would be charged with serving as role models and “educational resources” for students while promoting community policing and ensuring a “safe and secure learning environment,” according to the statement.
A single Park Ridge Police Department officer would be assigned to patrol Lincoln Middle School, while an officer from the Niles Police Department would patrol Emerson Middle School for four hours a day, two days per week if the agreement is approved by the Park Ridge City Council and the Niles Board of Trustees.
If the agreement is approved by Park Ridge and Niles officials, it will return to the District 64 board for final action, officials said.
The officers will “regularly work at the direction of school administration and serve as a natural extension of [District 64’s] comprehensive Safety & Security Plans, except in exigent circumstances,” according to the mission statement.
The Park Ridge officer set to patrol Lincoln Middle School will be selected by an advisory committee made up of five members selected by the city and up to five members selected by District 64. That committee will interview candidates for the school resource officer program and provide the superintendent and chief of police with input.
The Niles officer set to patrol Emerson Middle School will also be selected by a committee, and both appointments must be approved by the District 64 board.
“We believe these relationships will help enable us to solve as well as prevent problems within our schools and larger communities,” according to the mission statement.
The board also endorsed a suggestion from board member Tom Sotos to include a specific list of incidents that should be handled as part of the district’s regular disciplinary progress and not by a school resource officer.
A previous version of the agreement specified that “public order offenses including disorderly conduct; disturbance/disruption of the school or public assembly; trespass; loitering; profanity; and fighting that does not involve physical injury or a weapon shall be considered school discipline issues to be solely handled by school officials, rather than criminal law issues warranting formal law enforcement intervention (e.g., issuance of a criminal citation, ticket, or summons, filing of a delinquency petition, referral to a probation officer, or actual arrest.)”
Attorneys for Park Ridge and Niles have reviewed the agreements, but not the mission statement, said Anthony Loizzi, District 64’s attorney.
The District 64 board initially approved the program in August, touching off months of debate over the scope of the program, the officers’ duties and how the officers would be chosen.
As part of those deliberations, the board ordered a report from the Lisle-based law firm of Ekl, Williams and Provenzale. That report found there is no evidence to suggest that school resource officers have reduced the level of crime or violence at schools — and the program was unlikely to achieve the goals set by District 64 officials.
In addition, the report found that there are “real risks to the education setting and the rights of parents and students” with the addition of armed, uniformed officers to schools while the “identifiable benefits, while noble and valid, are not necessarily borne out by existing studies and data.”
Complaints about school resource officers can be made to both District 64 and the police departments, officials said.
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The agreement, which is posted at http://www.d64.org/about/sro, limits the school resource officers’ ability to discipline a student in the district’s special education program to address concerns voiced by parents of disabled students that their children’s rights could be violated. It now requires the school’s principal to consult with the student’s case manager or the district’s director of special education before asking the officer to participate in the discipline of a special education student, unless there is an immediate threat.
Miki Tesija, whose son is in the special education program, said she questioned the need for officers at District 64’s middle schools, especially when the district is working to improve its programs for students with disabilities.
Sotos said he wanted the school resource officers to undergo specific training in how to properly interact with students with severe disabilities. Board President Anthony Borrelli and Superintendent Laurie Heinz said the requirements for the school resource officers outlined in the agreement already covered that concern.