The state’s Assembly Committee on Education held an executive meeting today to discuss two new bills that, if passed, would require schools that make frequent calls to police to hire school resource officers, or SROs.
The first bill, Assembly Bill 53, would mandate both public and private high schools in Wisconsin to collect data on how often students commit a crime on school property, and how often those crimes are reported to law enforcement.
Republican Representative Joel Kitchens of Sturgeon Bay, who chairs the education committee, says that the goal of this bill is greater transparency.
“The purpose of this data is for parents and school districts to know what’s going on,” Kitchens says. “That’s where the transparency is. It’s not for us as policymakers, necessarily. Now if something comes up that we need to change our policies, then sure, but that’s not the purpose.”
But Representative Deb Andraca, a Democrat from Whitefish Bay says that the proposal’s unnecessary – and would create an unnecessary burden for schools.
“If I want to know what’s going on in my school district, I can go to a school board meeting, I can reach out to parents, when there are incidents at my school district, I get a text and I get a phone call. If I have a question, I can reach out to the principal. There are so many ways I can find out what’s going on in my school,” Andraca says.
A related bill, Assembly Bill 69, would require schools to employ a school resource officer, or SRO, if the school meets a certain threshold of incidents per semester.
Under the proposal, schools would need to hire an SRO if there are 100 or more incidents of disorderly conduct or other crimes in one semester, and if at least a quarter of those “incidents” result in arrest.
Proponents of the bill stayed quiet in today’s meeting, but Republican Representative Nik Rettinger of Mukwonago, who helped write the bill, says that the bill is necessary to create a safe learning environment for students.
Rettinger specifically pointed to the Wauwatosa school district, which has seen a number of fights on school grounds this school year. CBS 58 reports that currently, four police officers are stationed as SROs in Wauwatosa schools.
Several groups have registered against the bill, including the ACLU of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Public School District, the Wisconsin School Social Workers Association, and Disability Rights Wisconsin.
Joanne Juhnke, with Disability Rights Wisconsin, says that they are against the bill because students with disabilities are often disproportionately targeted by school resource officers.
“There you activate the school-to-prison pipeline for students with disabilities in a way that far exceeds the already overwhelming disparities that students with disabilities get referred to law enforcement more often,” Juhnke says.
Wisconsin Watch reports that, before the pandemic, Wisconsin referred students to police twice as often as schools nationwide, with only three states reporting higher rates of referral. That referral rate jumps even higher for students with disabilities, with 20 out of every 1000 students with disabilities being referred to police in the 2017/2018 school year.
Only one group, the Milwaukee Police Association, has registered in support.
Under the bill, legislators propose that the state Department of Public Instruction would cover part of the cost for hiring a SRO with federal pandemic relief funding.
But a fiscal report from the state Department of Administration says that those federal funds can only be used for limited purposes, and that funding SROs would not be allowed by the federal government.
Representative Andraca, who brought with her to the meeting a large poster of the fiscal report, says that without that funding, all the costs related to hiring SROs would fall on districts that are already strained.
Andraca says that she would rather see the state help to fund student support services.
“If we vote down this specific bill, there are lots of things that we can get behind, that are data-driven, that the DOJ wants to see move forward. I would like to see us do that,” Andraca says.
These bills come about three years after the Madison Metropolitan School District voted to remove SROs from their schools, when Black Lives Matter protests put increased scrutiny on police officers in the community, and in schools.
The removal saw heated debate, particularly from those looking to remove SROs from schools. Current mayoral challenger Gloria Reyes, who was president of the school board at the time, originally wanted to keep the SROs, but switched positions shortly after public demonstrations outside her home.
At the time, Madison Teachers Inc, the union representing Madison teachers and school district employees, also originally backed the inclusion of SROs in schools, but later backed their removal. That came with a caveat, however, of increased student support staff in Madison high schools, a move which never materialized.
In 2020, MMSD released a report that showed major disparities in who SROs were interacting with. According to NBC15, SROs had 84 interactions with students in the 2019-2020 school year. 51 of those students were Black or African American. Additionally, Black students made up 65% of arrests on school grounds, and 82% of citations.
Current MMSD Board Member Savion Castro says that he stands by his vote to remove SROs in 2020. He says that despite some of the bill’s authors pointing to high-profile incidents at Madison East High School in recent years, he still believes that removing the SROs created a safer, more inclusive environment in Madison schools.
“We’ve had a great school year at East,” Castro says. “It’s unfortunate that they have taken those incidents out of context and sensationalized them and used them for their own political agenda, which I think is far away from what is best for students.”
Castro adds that, while he doesn’t have exact numbers on the number of Madison Police interactions in Madison schools, he doesn’t believe the bills would affect MMSD.
The two bills passed the education committee today, and now head to the full Assembly. Companion bills in the state Senate have not yet passed. If passed by both chambers, the bills would head to Governor Evers for his approval or veto.
Photo courtesy: Chali Pittman / WORT Flickr
