PHX Reporter

The Phoenix Union School District Governing Board voted against the committee’s suggestions of how to bring school resource officers (SRO) back to the district during the board's meeting on May 4.

Despite the fact that the board did not have an agenda item regarding SROs on the agenda and due to an ongoing debate about the issue within the board, several parents, students and community members have come to recent meetings to share their thoughts on the matter. During the public comment section of the meeting, more than an hour was devoted to the SRO discussion.

"I think we had an important vote at the last board meeting to move forward with three study sessions," board member Aaron Marquez said. "I know I have three study sessions on my calendar before the end of the month for us as board members to really dive into the PowerPoint presentation and the proposals that the School Safety Committee worked on. I think there's a lot of really great ideas in there that we should definitely incorporate for the next school year, but I don't think the PowerPoint presentation as presented was presented in a way that creates policy."

Marquez also added to the board that "it's really important that we get in the habit as a board to start taking those guidances from the stakeholder processes and drafting them into policy that ends up in our policy manual."

The history of SROs on district campuses has been to have one in each building until 2020, when the district chose not to resign its contract with the officers, citing a $1.2 million savings by not paying their portion of the officers' salaries when the pandemic forced most students into remote learning. With the return of students to campus and the heightened awareness from the school shootings across the country, the district began looking into bringing SROs back, a thought state schools superintendent Tom Horne supports, saying the state should fund an officer in every school in Arizona.

The Phoenix Union district was set to vote on the issue during the board's meeting on April 13, but five hours of public comment and discussion led the board to postpone the vote until the June meeting to give them more time to consider all sides. Parents have taken the two-month delay as a chance to make their voices heard at governing body meetings, however, some parents and students want a law enforcement presence and trained officers who could handle the potential school invasion and shooting should one occur, and others want more social workers and emotional support instead of the traumatic impact of having officers walking around campus, which some students find intimidating and distracting.

Board member Stephanie Parra made a motion to accept the recommendation from the safety committee and move forward with bringing back SROs, which was supported by Lela Alston. The board debated it, some saying it was too soon to vote, and Parra said they had spent plenty of time and money receiving the thorough suggestions from the committee.

“We made a promise to the staff, to the students and the community that we would work expeditiously to do what we need to do with all the information that we need," board member Signa Oliver said, "and I say that promise we will keep and we will work expeditiously. I just don't believe that tonight... It would be irresponsible if we did so tonight.”

Parra and Alston voted in favor, but Ceyshe Napa, Jennifer Hernandez, Oliver and Aaron Marquez voted against it, meaning they would create their own board policy on the stipulations for having SROs back, if they do decide to move forward with them next year.