In the general election that concluded yesterday, Archuleta County voters showed their support for higher local teacher and staff salaries at our four local schools — Pagosa Springs High School, Pagosa Springs Middle School, Pagosa Springs Elementary School and local charter school Pagosa Peak Open School — by approving a $1.7-million-per-year mill levy override. The approved property tax increase will not only fund higher salaries; it will also support full-day Kindergarten, and will fund “school safety” measures.
As a result of this community support, Archuleta School District (ASD) will be hiring “full time school resource officers” to patrol the halls in each of its three conventional school buildings. Pagosa Peak Open School is not currently proposing to put police in its hallways, but will be implementing other safety enhancements.
We are not clear, from the information provided by ASD, if the police in the school hallways will be carrying guns. We might assume so, but at this point, that’s only an assumption.
In Part One, we looked at the issue of school safety, and asked two questions:
1. Are our schools becoming more dangerous?
and
2. Will parents, teachers and students feel safer, with police in the hallways?
The research available shows that schools in 2018 are, on average, much safer places than they were in the 1990s. In fact, violent crimes by young people — not only in schools but everywhere — have shown a marked decline nationally. You can find many discussions and illustrations of this dramatic drop in violent crime, online.
Other surveys show, however, that Americans have generally remained ignorant of this dramatic drop in all violent crime since the early 1990s — not only crimes committed by juveniles but also by adults. Most Americans seem to believe that crime has gotten worse over the past decade. (We saw that idea — that ‘crime is getting worse’ — actively promoted by the proponents of this year’s 1A “Justice System” tax increase measure. The measure failed anyway.)
So we believe that crime is worse, and that our schools are less safe. We’re wrong. But the Archuleta School District will nevertheless be placing police officers in our school hallways, to prevent a crime that will likely never happen.
From the Washington Post:
The Education Department reports that roughly 50 million children attend public schools for roughly 180 days per year. Since Columbine, approximately 200 public school students have been shot to death while school was in session, including the recent shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida…
That means the statistical likelihood of any given public school student being killed by a gun, in school, on any given day since 1999 was roughly 1 in 614,000,000. And since the 1990s, shootings at schools have been getting less common.
One chance in 614 million.
What, exactly, will these hallway police be doing in our public schools? How do you keep students safe, when there is really no danger to speak of?
Won’t this be one of the most boring jobs possible? Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.
That’s a real problem, and it’s one that is now plaguing school districts. Like, for example, Woodland Hills High School, in Pittsburgh, PA.
For years, the Woodland Hills School District had frequently called on school police to handle basic discipline, including minor infractions like cursing. Now, that’s changing, said new superintendent James Harris, hired this year to lead the district amid community concern over school policing.
Alleged assaults at Woodland Hills High School — circulated in online videos that showed students being choked, punched, and tased — put a national spotlight on the employment of school police and their role in student discipline.
From the74million.org website:
“We don’t need police officers patrolling the hallways of schools — that’s for school administrators to do,” [Superintendent] Harris told The 74. “Police have a much bigger role in the community, and it’s not arresting 14-year-olds for disorderly conduct in a hallway.”
Last year, five current and former students filed a lawsuit in federal district court against the district, three school administrators, two police officers who were stationed at the school, and a security company that contracted with the district. The accusations included assault, intimidation, and filing false criminal charges to justify excessive use of force. The students also alleged that administrators failed to prevent the misconduct…
An attorney representing the students said they settled for $530,000, with no admission of guilt from the district.
We should all have honest safety concerns for children attending public schools. The true risks to children’s safety — and risks to children’s emotional well-being — are not always the one’s we fear most.
In trying to make things better, we often — innocently, and ignorantly — make things worse.