For a third time, the Arlington Heights School District 25 board asked for additional information before making a final decision on whether to add new school resource officers in the district.
“Are we ready to make a decision next time? I’m not seeing that yet,” SD25 board President Anisha Jogee said after extensive board discussion at the Aug. 15 board meeting.
Jogee requested that Superintendent Lori Bein provide an anticipated short-term staffing plan to assist the board as it considers a decision. Board members expressed concern about the anticipated expense of additional SROs and what the impact would be on students and future staffing.
“We’ve heard every voice come to us about this. We heard concerns about bringing guns into the building and if we should hire social workers instead,” Jogee.
The board has been presented with a proposal for consideration that includes adding one full-time school officer each at South and Thomas, the two middle schools in the nine-school district. The cost for the SROs is estimated at $222,000.
Jogee said there seems to be a 50-50 community split over the SRO proposal. She said the proposal will be an informational item at the September or October board meeting and not up for a board vote at that time.
During her superintendent’s report at the board meeting, Bein provided an update on the proposal. She shared feedback from middle school principals, drafts of SRO job descriptions and evaluation plans, along with resources related to a memorandum of understanding between the school district and police department. The police department would cover benefits.
Currently, two school resource officers serve the district’s nine schools, Bein said, in addition to providing SRO services to 10 other Arlington Heights schools and four other nearby schools. Most of the officers’ time in SD25 is spent at Thomas and South schools where a combined total of approximately 1,900 students are enrolled in grades 6 to 8.
In addition to their roles as SROs, Bein said officers also provide student safety lessons, train staff and often participate in district extracurricular activities. The salaries and benefits of these two officers are paid by the village of Arlington Heights.
The idea to expand the school resource officers first came at the request of the Arlington Heights Police Department, Bein said, which wants to broaden its service in the community and not because of any safety concerns in the elementary school district.
“I can understand, potentially, the role of an SRO,” said board Member Rich Olejniczak. “Wouldn’t those funds be better spent on a social worker who could interact in a professional manner than a police officer could?”
Board Vice President Greg Scapillato said he needs more context on spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars on two SROs.
“If we have money to spend, why is this the place to spend it?” Scapillato asked.
He said he wasn’t debating the possible benefits of a SRO program, but was interested in the context of spending discretional funds on it rather than on other initiatives – such as students’ physical and mental health, relationship building, discipline, emergency readiness and social emotional learning.
Scapillato also requested baseline data for further evaluation, including current discipline data, office referrals, detentions, suspensions, SRO interventions and interactions.
Bein said it would be difficult to provide “apples to apples” data since current SROs are not full-time in the district and do not discipline students, administrators do. She said the district would have to have a dedicated SRO to collect baseline data to determine their impact at which point student and parent surveys could also be conducted on the impact of SROs.
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She explained that in recent years, the board approved adding social workers to the middle school but those positions are different from a SRO. The police officers have a community connection and interact with students outside of the classroom when students have concerns in the community.
Bein also said she would need to research what the long-term financial impact would be on staffing. The superintendent explained that the district has committed $1.4 million to additional staffing for full-day kindergarten – which starts next school year. She said the district will be faced with determining if reading specialists and others hired using Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds, provided by the federal government during the COVID-19 pandemic, will continue with the district after that money runs out.
The district was allocated a total $2.39 million in ESSER funds, according to Illinois State Board of Education data.
Bein said based on her research, area school districts do pay for their own SROs, unlike SD25 currently.
Board Member Brian Cerniglia questioned whether the SROs are the best use of the district’s resources.
“Do we collectively think this is an investment that will pay dividends for our kids?” Cerniglia questioned.
He said without wider context on overall staffing, the board will need to make difficult choices on who gets to stay in the district and who doesn’t. This perspective, he said, is necessary before making a decision on investing in the SROs.
He also said, “it’s not our position to ask officers not to carry weapons, they are required.”
Board members were also presented at the meeting with a tentative 2023-2024 budget.
There was also a special meeting about plans for the new superintendent search.
“I want to invite the whole [community] to follow along with the superintendent search. You are all part of this process,” Jogee said.
The board president explained that the search process will include surveys, focus groups, meetings and community input. A new website is planned to be created for search updates, and a letter from the school board will be distributed to parents soon.
“We want your voice, we want your input,” Jogee said. “As our superintendent retires, we have big shoes to fill. We’re very much engaged and working hard to find the next best superintendent for our community so follow along on that journey.”
Elizabeth Owens-Schiele is a freelancer.