The Wake County Board of Education plans to continue, with modifications, an agreement with law enforcement agencies for school resource officers throughout the school district.

The current agreement expires this spring. For months now, the board has been looking into data on the SRO program and broader community perceptions of it. Many community members have been pressing the board to discontinue it, citing the disproportionate referral of non-white students to police.

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Data show that Black students accounted for more than 60 percent of referrals in each of the last four school years, though the total number of referrals has declined in recent years.

The school district has more than 70 SROs. All high schools and middle schools have at least one, and some elementary schools also have an officer.

On Wednesday, the Wake County Board of Education’s Safety and Security Committee met to discuss the results of focus groups the district hosted on the topic.

The board didn’t vote on whether to continue the memorandum of understanding it has with law enforcement agencies for SROs, as had been planned for the meeting, based on a timeline set last month.

Board Chairman Keith Sutton said he decided not to ask for a vote because that implied there would be no more discussion on the matter, including on how to improve the SRO program. Based on the comments of board members, he said, he considered the opinion of the board to be in favor of continuing the agreement, but with modifications. Sutton asked if the board objected to his decision, and no one did.

“I recognize we need some relationship with law enforcement,” board member Jim Martin said. “I don’t want to get to a stage where the only access to law enforcement is 911.”

That can create a worse situation than what now exists, Martin said.

The board will solicit feedback from the community on what the SRO program should look like and address ambiguities discovered during the focus groups on just what a school resource officer is.

Sonya Stephens, district senior director of school accountability, presented the findings from focus groups held to gauge perception of SROs and discuss the results of survey on them.

One of the chief findings was that the role of SROs is not clearly defined, communicated or understood by everyone.

For instance, principals and assistant principals largely said they don't believe an SRO should be the one intervening when students are fighting with one another. However, half of teachers and about 40% of other employees thought that was the role of the officer.

That discrepancy is something the board needs to address as it continues the SRO program, Martin said. He suggested the board work in parallel with the agreement renewal process to improve the program.

In renewing the SRO program, he said, “it became very clear, we don’t know what that means.”

Many board members harkened back to a 2013 task force that examined school safety following the massacre of 20 schoolchildren and six school staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.

That task force recommended well-trained personnel in schools who can address mental health issues that are at the root of some behavioral problems in schools.

Board member Chistine Kushner said she’s frustrated that the board still has to think about the recommendations from eight years ago because the problems persist. The need is the same, and so is the solution, she said.

But what prompted discussion in 2013 was a school shooting, and in 2020, it was the death of George Floyd, a Black man whom a police officer knelt on for eight minutes until he died.

It’s a different context, Sutton said, but “the same sort of important work but brought about by different crises that we saw happening in our community.”

More therapeutic professionals in schools would prevent a lot of issues in schools that officers are sometimes called into deal with, Martin said.

“That’s the only thing that I see that’s going to change behavior,” he said. Other board members agreed.

“This has to be funded,” board member Roxie Cash said. “It ’s our top priority.”

Board member Monika Johnson-Hostler said the district could seek support personnel who aren’t certified in certain mental health fields, which would mean a lower cost to the district. A pilot project showed that approach can still have a positive impact, she said.

The board also heard from attorney Maura O’Keefe, who presented three recommended changes to the SRO program, based on a review of the program:

  • Increasing training and qualifications of those who operate the SRO program, such as training for the school administrators and the officers themselves and qualifications for officers
    • Offering more specific direction on when and how SROs should intervene in student conflicts, such as examining the criteria for referring an incident to an SRO and what student information is shared with officers and increasing restorative practices for behavioral issues rather than strictly punitive reactions
      • Offering more detailed communication for people to offer feedback on the program’s operation and providing clearer mechanism for stakeholders to discuss performance of SROs

        Board members discussed better training for officers in dealing with children, and some cited concerns about officers who normally deal with adult criminals transitioning into working with schoolchildren.

        Johnson-Hostler asked district officials to find out how many officers may have other jobs within their law enforcement agencies.