Rep. Jim Walsh (R-Aberdeen) testifies on his bill to pay for school resource officers (image from TVW)
The state would have to pay for an armed police officer on every K-through-12 school campus under a bill now in the State House.
The bill would order the Superintendent of Public Instruction to provide enough money for a School Resource Officer for every campus, where the purpose of an SRO is not policing the school but to build relationships with students with the hope of diverting them from criminal behavior.
The prime sponsor of the bill, Republican Representative Jim Walsh of Aberdeen, tells the State House Education Committee there’s not enough evidence to show SROs would prevent mass shootings, but he says the studies find they do make campuses safer. Walsh also talked about specific cases, where parents of kids on Individual Education Plans, or IEPs, say SROs treat special needs students poorly. “A lot of the criticism of SROs is driven by anecdotal stories,” Walsh says, “and those are emotionally-compelling stories, but it’s a constant question: should we legislate by anecdote or by evidence, and the evidence generally shows that these SROs do make schools safer, especially for the youngest kids.
Opponents of House Bill 1071 say having School Resource Officer at schools often leads to more expulsions and arrests, frequently aimed at students of color that feed them into what’s called the “school to prison pipeline”. Attorney Natasha Hill, who helped rewrite the SRO policy in Spokane Schools, says despite supporters’ claim the data shows SROs make schools safer, Hill says they have research “that shows that putting SROs and CROs into schools has not made our students safer, and all it does is drain money that could be put toward resources, like counselors.”
Jeff DeVere of the Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs says SROs work with administrators to build relationships and trust. DeVere says, “They have story after story, where they believe that their presence and their relationships have helped children stay out of the so-called ‘pipeline’. The SROs are also there ready for serious incidents where immediate response and services are critical.”
Walsh says the bill would require the state to provide the money to districts to pay for SROs and that the money could only be used for that purpose, but he says the districts have local control and they would not be forced to use the money to hire SROs.
