PVUSD votes in favor of bringing back SROs
SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, Calif. (KION) MILPA, a non-profit organization, expressed their disappointment in a statement after the Pajaro Valley Unified School District decided to bring back school resource officers (SROs). The decision was made at a special board meeting Wednesday night after a 6-1 vote was made.
Milpa says the pilot program would use money that belongs to the students and their education. They added that this money could have been used to support mental health problems, poverty, food insecurity, domestic violence among other things that affect students.
"It makes no sense to spend funds that are meant to be used to uplift education, to take care of students and divert them into a department that sole purpose is to surveillance to incriminate," said Bernard Gomez with MILPA.
According to MILPA, a school resource officer cannot create any positive change, and add that an SRO is "an extension of a racist law enforcement system that traces back to slavery."
"They're going to be disproportionately targeted by the SROs and that's the facts," said Gomez. "Data that was presented at that board meeting. And yet, the board decided to ignore facts and drive decision making through an emotional charge event."
PVUSD's Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez said everyone is on the same page and wants safety. It was important to come to a decision where everyone’s voice is taken into consideration, she said. That decision included both SRO’s, mental health clinicians.
"We're hoping that we can pair them together and utilize both of their strengths," said Rodriguez. "So that we can have a resource for the students that makes sure that they're safe, but also treated respectfully and with and culturally responsive at the same time.”
For now, the district says they'll run a pilot program at two high schools, Watsonville and Aptos High for one year. In addition to school resource officers and mental health clinicians, the program will include six other safety measures.
"It includes a new communication, campus security cameras at the different schools, an independent review that we're going to be asking an outside agency to do in order to really evaluate what happened," she said. "It also includes an expansion of our current program with probation, which is called the success program. And then also an expansion of restorative practices."
The program is expected to cost approximately $ 1,197,257. PVUSD will be conducting interviews in the next three weeks. They’re looking for officers who want to work and care about the safety of students. They hope they could find someone who speaks Spanish and can relate to students.
