What do you think about the President’s plan to put more police officers in schools?

Will adding more police officers in the schools really keep our children safe or will it cause more children to end up with in a juvenile record, in  juvenile detention or better yet in jail? My experience was that my son was hand cuffed multiple times for what I consider minor offences that could have been handled by school personnel like talking back to a teacher, refusing to change into proper gym clothing for PE (the boys locker room was always where the bullying happened) and having an angry verbal outburst.  On one such occasion he was taken to the police station and charged with disorderly conduct (the charges were finally dropped).

As a nation, we must learn that "more" does not equate with "better". In an effort to ensure that our schools are safe, we should first assess the effectiveness of current school resource officers, before placing more officers into schools.  Schools are still one of the safest places that exist for our children.  School shootings represent a very small proportion of the violence experienced by America's young people.

Placing more officers in schools is a very reactive response.  We should be PROACTIVE, and work to prevent violence from reaching our schools in the first place.  Expending our resources to react to violence does nothing to prevent violence from occurring.

In many states, resource officers are not employees of the school but are paid by state and local governments to enforce city and county laws.  These officers tend to be familiar with conflict and crime, rather social and emotional well-being.

Many school officers are not trained to work with children who may have experienced trauma or have other social, emotional, or behavioral health needs.  Because officers are not trained to deal with the student population, they may often escalate a situation rather than deescalate or solve the problem. One solution seems to be getting training, such as Crisis Intervention Team training, to resource officers.  Perhaps we should mandate that school resource officers participate in youth Mental Health First Aid trainings so that they will be able to recognize the signs of someone who may be experiencing a mental health crisis.  Resource officers could be extremely helpful and effective if they were all properly trained to work with children, youth, and emerging adults.  As one parent put it, "The emphasis should be on proper training for these resource officers and effective engagement in the IEP process so that they learn how to handle the youth."

We understand the importance of maintaining and enforcing rules, however working with growing youth requires a different skill set than working with a criminal population.  We must recognize these differences and prepare these resource officers to work with children and youth.

Positive Behavioral interventions and Supports (PBIS) make a difference in schools and are much more affordable than increasing the presence of police officers. If there are funds available to hire more school personnel, perhaps we should consider hiring someone who will be able to provide social and emotional support to students, or at least provide a safe space where students are able to discuss their emotions and feel supported.

What do you think about the President's plan to put more police officers in schools?

http://www.ffcmh.org/blog/more-police-schools

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