Milwaukee school resource officers; mixed views surface at public meeting
MPS SROs hold community meeting
Community members are questioning the impact of school resource officers nearly 10 months after their return to Milwaukee Public Schools, with calls for more data and transparency.
MILWAUKEE - Nearly 10 months after school resource officers were mandated to return to Milwaukee Public Schools, community members are raising questions about safety, trust and accountability as the program continues to expand.
What we know:
Officers assigned to the SRO unit held an informational meeting Monday night, Jan. 12, inside Marshall High School. The meeting was open to the public but saw limited attendance from parents and students, with most questions coming from concerned community members.
"Do our students truly feel safe? Do they feel like they are building connections?" said Dan Maldonado, co-executive director of Leaders Igniting Transformation. "I think there’s a mixed feeling."
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Community members were given the opportunity to speak directly with officers and ask questions about their role inside schools. Leaders Igniting Transformation has chapters inside several of the 12 high schools currently assigned SROs.
"We do worry about that school to prison pipeline, and we do worry about making our schools feel like prisons; they are already walking through metal detectors and now with officers in schools, we don’t know how that makes them feel," Maldonado said.
Dig deeper:
State law requires school resource officers in MPS. After a legal battle, officers returned to schools last March, with the district and the City of Milwaukee splitting the cost of the program.
The 33-officer unit is led by Capt. Vynetta Norberg, who says officers were carefully selected for the role.
"We had a certain vetting process to figure out who would be a best fit for this role – not everybody got it, and not everyone was a great fit," Norberg said.
Norberg says officers are building relationships with students and making a positive impact inside schools.
"In my 24 years of service, I never thought that I’d be back here standing in my high school once again," she said. "My favorite part of this is just watching the officers just popping up on them and just engaging with the students and how much the students like them."
While some community members support the program, others say more data is needed before fully backing it.
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"I feel like we should have had statistics of what was going on before they got there, and what has happened since they been there," said Jewell Carter, a concerned citizen.
Currently, SROs are assigned to 12 high schools across the district. Police say roving officers also respond to calls for service and make rounds to engage with students at other schools.
Milwaukee school resource officers share MPS history, goals
School resource officers returned to Milwaukee Public Schools in March. On Friday, three of those officers gave FOX6 News a peek behind the curtain.
The Source: The information in this post was collected and produced by FOX6 News.