Cedar Rapids schools consider changes to resource officer program

CEDAR RAPIDS — The Cedar Rapids Community School District is considering removing school resource officers from middle schools and ensuring that the officers in high schools not be involved in enforcing school rules or discipline, among other recommendations being considered by the school board.

The proposed changes come as the district and Cedar Rapids Police Department set joint goals of reducing arrests and charges filed of all students by 50 percent or more, and of bringing a 50 percent or greater reduction in the disproportionality of arrests of Black students.

“Without making changes we’re not providing equitable opportunities for students,” Deputy Superintendent Nicole Kooiker said. The school board is set to vote on the recommendations at its next meeting at 5:30 p.m. Sept. 13.

Before this school year, the district had school resource officers — city police officers — at two of its six middle schools: Roosevelt and McKinley. Officers departed those schools before the new academic year started Monday.

Cedar Rapids Police Chief Wayne Jerman, in a note to City Council members provided to The Gazette, said the department did not agree with the recommendation to remove officers from the middle schools and had hoped to persuade district officials to use the two officers to work across all six of the schools. But when the district and police met earlier this month, district officials told the department that this was no longer an option.

“The Police Department is concerned about the safety of students and staff in these schools, especially with the carrying of weapons and physical altercations that have occurred in and around the schools,” Jerman wrote.

Other proposed changes to the program include: Officers wearing a “soft uniform” to be more approachable and less intimidating; officers seeking diversion options for first offenses where possible; schools not involving officers in enforcing school rules or discipline; and officers not listening to the questioning of students by school officials unless requested for safety.

Newly available data from the Iowa Department of Human Rights showed that Black students in Cedar Rapids schools were six times more likely to have allegations of criminal wrongdoing made against them than white students.

Less than 3 percent of all students were arrested by school resource officers over a four-year period, Jerman told school board members earlier this summer. Black students, however, are arrested at higher rates than white students though they make up only 19.1 percent of the student population.

The resource officer program was piloted in January 2010 at Jefferson High School, and then expanded to Washington and Kennedy the following year. Before this school year, officers had operated at Jefferson, Kennedy, Washington and Metro high schools, the Polk Alternative Education Center and the middle schools.

In June, Kooiker said there was no specific reason the police officers initially were added to the district, and there is “no good answer” about why they were later added to only two of the middle schools.

The school resource officer program costs the Cedar Rapids Community School District and the city just over $950,000 a year for seven officers. That is about $134,000 per school resource officer.

The district also ensures that each school has access to a Tanager Place therapist, a cost of under $10,000 per therapist. The district also has seven restorative practitioners in the schools, which costs about $15,000 each.

Other proposals for the program, among others, include:

Dozens of students, educators, parents and community members spoke for over two hours Monday either in favor of school resource officers or asking the district to consider making changes or removing officers altogether.

Anthony Arrington, a member of the Advocates for Social Justice, said he hasn’t “heard one thing” that school resource officers do that a trained therapist or counselor couldn’t.

“One carries a gun and a badge and the other was trained to deal with children,” he said. “Unless your skin looks like mine, unless you’ve been through the experiences we’ve seen in our communities, you don’t get it and you’re not listening. This isn’t a liberal or conservative conversation. This is a conversation about kids.”

Jess Barnhart, school resource officer at Polk Alternative, said what Arrington said “stuck” with her. “Maybe I shouldn’t be a police officer. Maybe I should be a therapist,” said Barnhart, who has been a police officer for 23 years.

But Barnhart said being a school resource officer has made her a better police officer and human. She wants to be able to continue at Polk.

“I don’t know if I get to stay yet,” she said through tears. “They’re my family, and I don’t want to leave them. I don’t want another officer who doesn’t know this child, this family, to make a decision that might escalate a situation.”

Danny Levy, 17, a senior at Washington High, said it is “scary” to have a police officer armed and in uniform “in a space you are supposed to be learning.”

Danny, who described herself as a light-skinned Black person, said she observes the disproportionate treatment of Black students. “I don’t understand how students — children — are getting arrested,” she said.

But A’Alyiah Watkins, a 2018 graduate of Jefferson High, became a volunteer with Cedar Rapids police because of the impact school resource officers had on her. The officers were role models she could depend on, she said.

“My main concern taking officers out of schools is student and staff safety,” she said. “Teachers aren’t trained to break up fights, and I don’t think teachers should be responsible for risking their lives and breaking up fights.”

Comments: (319) 398-8411; grace.king@thegazette.com