SRO good intentions lead to bad outcomes for students

Our Cedar Rapids School Board and City Council are considering the presence of police officers — referred to as “school resource officers” or “SROs” — in our schools. As the parent of a Cedar Rapids Community School District student, I want our community to take every smart step to keep our children safe at school. I also believe strongly that the police officers are exceptional public servants, committed to doing the very best for every single one of our kids, without regard for race or background and dedicated to best practices relating to racial justice and equity issues.

As much as I believe in the best intentions of our police officers and school leadership, and as much as I wish SROs were an easy answer, the evidence proves that SROs have a fundamentally unacceptable tendency to increase bad outcomes for kids. These bad outcomes include lower academic performance, increased absenteeism, and higher dropout rates. In addition, schools with a police presence push many more children into the criminal justice system for typical misbehavior.

For Black students and students with disabilities (who are 2.9 times more likely to be arrested in school than students without disabilities), these problems are even worse. In the CRCSD, Black students were arrested at around three times the rate of white students during the last school year. This is true even though CRCSD is addressing a significant racial imbalance among students receiving the most severe forms of school discipline. Despite good intentions and a concerted effort to reduce the disparate punishment of Black students in our schools, the gap between punishment of white students and Black students still is shockingly wide.

Sadly, some SRO supporters openly express the racist view that Black students are arrested more often because “they’re the ones misbehaving.” Some other SRO supporters don’t say this out loud but must — consciously or unconsciously — believe it. However, the data are clear: Black and white kids misbehave in school at about the same rates. Joshua Rovner, in a 2016 study, concluded that “black and white youth are roughly as likely to get into fights, carry weapons, steal property, use and sell illicit substances, and commit status offenses, like skipping school.” Likewise, Russell Skiba and Natasha Williams, in a 2014 article entitled “Are Black Kids Worse? Myths and Facts about Racial Differences in Behavior,” found “no evidence that students of color in the same schools or districts engage in more severe behavior that would warrant higher rates of suspension or expulsion.” Given these data, continued support for the use of SROs, while knowing the racial disparities they cause, is indefensible.

More than 500 CRCSD students are waiting for a school-based therapist. Yet, CRCSD spent about $3,700 per call during the 2021-2022 school year for the two floating SROs to respond to calls made for police response in schools. We are fortunate to live in a community with excellent police response times, where schools — like the rest of us — can call the police without a charge and get help fast. We should spend money where it is proven to make kids safer and help them succeed: access to mental health therapists, school counselors, nurses and conflict resolution facilitators.

As someone who has benefited from an embarrassing amount of (unearned) patience from teachers and principals, I believe strongly that kids of every background deserve to be kids — to ask obnoxious questions, to push limits, to be a little too loud, to quarrel with a classmate — without risking a ride in a squad car.

Bill McCartan is an attorney in Cedar Rapids.