Community groups, members of public urge South Bend board to remove police from schools – South Bend Tribune

SOUTH BEND As the school board prepares to decidewhether to continueor end their relationship with local police departments, those opposed to the school resource officer program urged the board not to renew the contract during the comment portion of Monday's board meeting at Washington High School.

All but one of the people who spoke about the SRO program during the hearing of visitors portion appealed to the board not to renew contracts with the South Bend Police and the St. Joseph County Police departments to provide armed officers to the schools.

Superintendent Todd Cummings said the administration is working on a newcontract, which was first signed in 2012, which will be presented to the board with a recommendation to continue or end the program at a future meeting.

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Cummings said the administration will also make public the results of a survey that asked members of the public for their opinions on the SRO program during that meeting.

"We shared it broadly," Cummings said, after the meeting. "We shared it with the NAACP, and we shared it with other folks to let them have a look at it first.

"We'll share our data when we come back to the MOU (memorandum of understanding) with the city."

Black Lives Matter, South Bend;the NAACP and other SRO critics who spoke during the meetingrepeated their claims the administration's surveywording was biased.

"We believe the survey distributed in its current content systematically favors an outcome that supports having SROs in school," said Trina Robinson of the NAACP.

Both Jorden Giger of Black Lives Matter, South Bend and Drew Duncan of the NAACPsaidtheir workgathering petition signatures from members of the public who want the program endedput them in contact with students who have concerns about the presence of armed police in schools.

"We've heard from students at various high schools in particular who talked about students being tased by police officers, particularly at Clay High School,"Giger said.

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Giger also pointed board members of a presentation earlier in Monday's meeting about staff training on diversity, equity and inclusion that was done earlier in the meeting to make the point the $500,000 the district spends on the SRO program could be used to initiate programs toaddress the root causes of the problems confronting many of the district's students.

Duncan agreed, noting the money could be used to hire 12 to 13 employees at $40,000 a year who could be trained to perform many of the functions done by the SROs.

Maya Marosz, a student at Washington High School, said she attends a school that does not have apolice presence and she feels more comfortable with the unarmed security guardsemployed at Washington.

Maya, a junior at Washington, said she tranferred to the South Bend schools from John Glenn, a district that employs SROs. And while she never had a problem with the officers while at John Glenn, their presence was always a constant source of worry, she said.

Catrina Baker, who attended the meeting with her daughter Kyla Henderson, said she spoke as a parent believes there are better uses for the $500,000.

"This irks me that we are spending half a million dollars on the police department instead of giving our youth who are in trouble that funding," she said. "Yes, we need behavioral intervention. Yes, we need restorative justice."

Linda Lucy, the president of the National Education Association-South Bend teachers union, was the only member of the public to speak in favor of keeping the SRO program.

"I think that they are very important," she said. "I don't think the SROs deprive the kids of an education."

Most of the board members saidthey are still studying the issue. Oletha Jones, though, said she planned to vote against renewing the contract, while Leslie Wesley spoke favorably about the SRO program, noting that people regularly interact with law enforcement in a variety of places.

Email South Bend Tribune reporter Howard Dukes at hdukes@gannett.com

Follow him on Twitter:@DukesHoward

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Community groups, members of public urge South Bend board to remove police from schools - South Bend Tribune