Put SROs back in Cedar Rapids middle schools

The Cedar Rapids School Board should reinstate school resource officers (police) to McKinley and Roosevelt Middle Schools, and add them to all other middle schools in their system. Last year, the board defied the clear will of the public in removing the SROs from McKinley and Roosevelt. Now, after the Texas mass shooting, and a mass shooting incident in Cedar Rapids, the school board is scheduled to vote June 13 on a new SRO contract.

So, I’m asking SROs be deployed in all Cedar Rapids middle schools, too. We could pay the added cost from the $32.4 million in federal COVID relief money. Surveys from last year indicates the strength of community and student support for school-based cops:

1. 75 percent of community respondents support the SROs; 2. 72 percent of students said SROs are needed in our schools; and 3. 77 percent of students surveyed say they have not witnessed a difference in how SROs discipline students of color vs. white students.

There have been numerous incidents of violence on various school properties even since the board’s unfortunate decision last fall.

Do the right thing. Support police in the middle schools and high schools. Citizens should email their board members, or Superintendent Noreen Bush at nbush@crschool.us.

Kevin Wymore

Cedar Rapids