The Park Ridge-Niles School District 64 Board of Education on Monday voted unanimously to create a committee to craft a pilot school resource officer program that would assign officers to Lincoln and Emerson middle schools.
The committee, which will include board members Tom Sotos and Rick Biagi, will be tasked with determining whether there is a need for the program, which has been under development for nine months.
Board member Larry Ryles said the committee needs to help the board clarify the issues involved.
“Somewhere along the line, we got in the swamp,” Ryles said. “The board needs to get out of the swamp.”
The committee will also likely include the principals of Lincoln and Emerson middle schools, as well as representatives of the schools’ parent-teacher organizations. Superintendent Laurie Heinz said she would work with Sotos and Biagi to develop a plan to invite community members to join the committee and refine its agenda.
In addition to a memorandum of understanding, the committee would also be charged with crafting an intergovernmental agreement that could be presented to the Park Ridge City Council and the Niles Board of Trustees for approval.
Neither municipality has formally considered the pilot program, which would assign a single Park Ridge Police Department officer 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.
Board President Anthony Borrelli said the group should also consider what the downsides of the program could be and ways to address those issues.
The board agreed to form the committee earlier this month after board members Biagi, Fred Sanchez and Eastman Tiu said they opposed the pilot program as it was proposed in a mission statement approved by the board in May.
That plan charged the officers with serving as role models and “educational resources” for students while promoting community policing and ensuring a “safe and secure learning environment.”
Sotos said he was frustrated to hear from a member of the district’s Social Emotional Learning Committee Monday night that the group had not been consulted about whether there was a need for school resource officers in the district’s middle schools.
In addition, Sotos criticized Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Lori Lopez, who told the board she was not clear on how the school resource officer program would meet the goals laid out in the district’s strategic plan to improve social emotional learning among students.
“We should have heard those concerns nine days into this discussion, not nine months into it,” Sotos said. “I’m going to stop talking, because I am angry.”
Social and emotional learning is defined by the Illinois State Board of Education as “the process through which children develop awareness and management of their emotions, set and achieve important personal and academic goals, use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and maintain positive relationships, and demonstrate decision making and responsible behaviors to achieve school and life success.”
The board had also been scheduled to create a committee to advise the board on how to improve the district’s special education programs, but Borrelli removed that item from the meeting’s agenda. That action was criticized by several board members and parents of students in the special education program.
More Top Picks Yuneec Breeze 4k
Borrelli said he removed the item because newly hired Student Services Director Lea Anne Frost does not start until July 1. The board’s rules allow Borrelli to remove items from its agendas.
“I apologize,” Borrelli said. “I wanted to have Frost in place so we could work collaboratively.”
The board voted to add a discussion of the special education committee to Monday’s agenda, which is allowed under the Illinois Open Meeting Act.
Ryles and Sanchez volunteered to serve on the committee and said they would work with Heinz to develop a process to invite members of the public to join the committee while working to develop an outline of the committee’s goals and scope.
A formal vote to create the committee is set to take place at the board’s next meeting, scheduled for July 9. Frost is scheduled to be at a conference and will not be present at the meeting.