U-46 board considers renewing school resource officers amid concerns

Officials at Elgin-area schools are considering renewing contracts with local police departments for the school resource officer program.

Officers currently are assigned at Elgin Area School District U-46's eight middle schools, five high schools and alternative programs.

Several school board members this week stressed the importance of better training those officers on cultural competency, dealing with LGBTQ issues and students with special needs, as well as reducing the disproportionality of in-school arrests of Black and Latino students.

"I would like to see us emphasize that we are looking at SROs as a resource and not as an enforcement tool," school board member Melissa Owens said. "To me, the contract right away reads that they are an enforcement tool whether or not that's our practice."

Owens said she is concerned about student arrests for behavioral events being heavily weighted toward students of color.

U-46 has had school resource officers in high schools since the 1980s and in middle schools since the 1990s. Early on, those officers were involved in student discipline, but that role has shifted in the last six years.

In 2013, the district introduced the 3rd Millennium intervention program for offenses related to illicit drug, tobacco and alcohol use, domestic and sexual violence prevention and conflict resolution. It uses a restorative approach involving online learning and self assessment, with an educational component for parents.

Student arrests for behavioral infractions have declined significantly since then - down from 343 in the 2013-2014 school year to 36 in 2019-2020. The majority of arrests, throughout the period, involved Black and Hispanic students, said John Heiderscheidt, U-46 director of school safety and culture.

"That's considering a lot of work we were doing to reduce exclusionary discipline, out-of-school suspensions and the school-to-prison pipeline by finding better ways to help kids after they make bad choices," he said. "We are disproportionate in the area still of African American students being represented in our arrests, much like other categories of discipline in U-46."

Heiderscheidt said district administrators need the same level of training as officers when it comes to cultural competency.

While the officers currently are familiar with crisis prevention training, the proposed contracts will require them to meet new Illinois Training Standards Board requirements, Heiderscheidt said.

School board member Kate Thommes said the contracts also should specify how school resource officers are trained to interact with and handle special needs populations, such as autistic students.

"Every kid with autism has a disruption in their language," she said. "My kid has a significant language disruption. If a police officer tells him to stop and put his hands up, my son is not going to do that. He literally does not have the language ability to understand that. And he's not alone. Our schools have a number of kids in that category. That needs to be a priority moving forward."

Thommes questioned why a police officer would be better qualified to de-escalate a situation involving a student having a mental health crisis versus a licensed clinical psychologist, school counselor or nurse.

As part of their role, school resource officers help manage street gang issues, are experts in security plans and event management, help with crisis response and drug incidents, mentor and build relationships with students, teach classes, are present when school administrators conduct random weapons or drug searches and serve as mediators for restorative practices and home visits.

Elgin Police Chief Ana Lalley said her department's policy emphasizes education, enforcement when appropriate, and engagement with students and staff. The department has seven resource officers in U-46 schools who are trained on fair and impartial policing and specifically implicit bias, she added.

"We really want to find a way for students to see us as people and not just for the uniforms we wear," she said.