Here & Now

No Police Officers in Madison High Schools Starting in Fall

Frederica Freyberg:

This week the Madison School Board voted to remove police officers from its schools. It was one of the demands of racial justice protesters, who say African-American students can feel threatened by their presence. Earlier today, we spoke with School Board President Gloria Reyes, who also happens to be a former police officer. Thanks for joining us.

Gloria Reyes:

Thank you for having me.

Frederica Freyberg:

So why did you vote in favor of removing police resource officers from Madison’s high schools?

Gloria Reyes:

You know, it was a really difficult decision. You know, after George Floyd’s murder by a police officer, it really changed the environment throughout the country and here locally. I learned early on, shortly thereafter that I lost the majority of board members’ support to keep SROs in our schools. And I had to set my personal and professional thoughts about our police officers in schools and listen to my colleagues and the many voices in our community who were advocating to remove our officers from our schools. While I know that our Madison Police Department, SROs particularly, have provided our schools and students many benefits that have built trust and relationships and our Madison Police Department officers serve our community every day with integrity and compassion. I know that, because I served and worked alongside many of them. I also felt that the combination of the racially-motivated incidents in our country has served really to increase the emotional and psychological impact of having SROs — having SROs in our schools and had — and the impact that it had on our students, especially our students of color. So as a result I felt we owed it to them to pursue a viable alternative to SROs in our buildings. I know that we as a community and all over the country have utilized police officers to respond to every societal challenge. And we need to stop placing our officers in those positions, invest in resources that get to the root causes of violence and public safety challenges instead of relying on our officers and place them in these positions to solve a lot of our complex societal challenges. So considering the incidents of racial injustice our nation has experienced and as MMSD continued planning for the reopening of schools for this fall, I felt that the timing was right. It gives us some time for the board of education to incorporate a strategy of options to remove SROs from our school. And so, you know, it’s very complex times, as you know. And having lasting and painful memories for our students and staff and felt it was time to press harder to dismantle the systems that perpetuate racism and create new structures, void of harmful inequities and with the well-being of every student at the center. And this is an opportunity to do that, right, not only within our law enforcement profession, but also within our public school system.

Frederica Freyberg:

I know that you were just saying that the student resource officers provide a lot of different services other than just being kind of peacekeepers or, you know, dealing with issues within a school. In fact, some people are saying, okay, if you remove these officers from the schools, then you really need to backfill with things like social workers and psychologists, counselors and nurses. Is that in the planning in terms of trying to replace all of the things that these officers provided in the schools?

Gloria Reyes:

Yeah. I mean, that has to be part of the plan. We had — we had relied on officers to really be social workers, mental health professionals, when they don’t have the capacity to do that. We as a school district need to prioritize our budget around social service opportunities and services to our students. And so we’re just going to have to invest our funds in a different way to provide those mental health and social, emotional support systems for our students.

Frederica Freyberg:

And so are there those funds within the district to do that?

Gloria Reyes:

We will — currently, right now, we are waiting for the state budget, and so we don’t have anything set in place right now. But that is going to be our priority. You know, I know that our Madison Teachers Union did come out and had supported removing SROs out of our schools if we were able to come up with an additional 33 staff people. And I can’t say either way right now. However, we’re considering a variety of different approaches. We are, like I said, currently waiting for the budget repair bill from the state, and it’s unlikely, though, that we will be able to hire anywhere near that amount of additional staff in time. But we anticipate — because we anticipate some budget reductions. However, I think we have to figure out and be innovative and divert current resources to these support services.

Frederica Freyberg:

You know, some people have said that in fact notwithstanding everything we’ve been talking about, these officers in the schools had been able to build relationships and provide as role models to some students. What about the loss of that?

Gloria Reyes:

It’s going to be a big loss. It is. I think they have — they were one component of our safety and security plan. They were able to build relationships, as you said, deescalate situations, offer family and training support. And so they have provided great service to our students at our comprehensive high schools. And I think we’re just going to have to reimagine what our public safety looks like right now. I think we have to really put our students, particularly our students of color, at the center and to be able to lead us through a solution. Law enforcement has a — has really been placed in positions that historically has caused harm disproportionately for our people of color and we have to recognize that on re-inventing what public safety looks like in our schools.

Frederica Freyberg:

All right. Gloria Reyes, we need to leave it there. Thank you for joining us on this.

Gloria Reyes:

Sure. Thank you.