Sandy Hook as a Catalyst for SROs in CT

Imagine yourself huddled in the corner of your classroom amongst your peers, unsure of your future safety in the wake of events like the Stoneman Douglas school shooting. Unfortunately for students across the United States, these types of lockdown drills are often reality. In my hometown of Middletown, Connecticut, School Resource Officers or SROs (essentially police officers), can be found in almost every educational institution. Though I still need to look into the magnitude of the presence of SROs in other states, Connecticut, in particular, has high stakes in protecting students, as the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred in Newtown, CT, and is now the fourth-deadliest overall shooting in America. Although I was also in elementary school when this incident occurred, I distinctly remember the hasty changes in protocol that resulted; school doors locked during the day, more frequent lockdown drills, and of course, the widespread implementation of SROs. I and others believe that SROs are not needed in schools, and so this serves as my local issue.

Almost 10 years later, and school districts in Connecticut, including Middletown, are starting to re-evaluate the role of SROs in schools, including their training, procedures, and effects on students’ mental health, something that I hope to explore further in my essay. The Black Lives Matter movement has also contributed heavily to these considerations (Leavenworth). For example, Colchester recently took its SRO out of the school budget, resulting in major backlash from the police department. SRO proponents specifically cited Newtown as a reason to keep officers in schools, and the police department also talked about the function of SROs in sexual assault cases (DeRosa).

Beginning in March 2021, Middletown formed a committee to look into the role of SROs in the district’s schools. The committee recommended that SROs stay in schools, but that mental health resources are increased (Chan). Some of the major concerns included student rights when it comes to confrontation with SROs (ie. interrogation or arrest), possible officer bias towards Black and Hispanic students, and a severe lack of appropriate training.

The current solution that I am looking at is completely removing officers from schools, though this may change depending on what I continue to find as benefits of SROs. I think it would be best to replace them with more mental health resources, just as is advocated for by the BLM movement. I will look into districts that have started doing this: “School districts that include Minneapolis, Seattle, and Denver have moved to cut the officers. In some of those districts, funds have been redirected to hire more social workers and mental health professionals, according to news reports. However, since most school schedules have included remote learning, the outcome of the changes is not fully known” (Leavenworth). For my global angle, I will look at what is done internationally to have less of a possibility of school shootings, while considering the difference in abundance of guns in America versus other countries.

Sources:

1. https://www.middletownpress.com/shoreline/article/After-backlash-Colchester-schools-return-SRO-16188446.php
2. https://www.courant.com/community/middletown/hc-news-middletown-school-resource-officers-20210327-mug3daiwljax5g26uuaczkuf7y-story.html
3. https://www.courant.com/community/middletown/hc-news-middletown-school-resource-officers-20210625-wtccb3mhsngsjjdugpj6ak2dq4-story.html