Columbus OH high schools reopen without police officers for first time in 25 years
Columbus OH March 31 2021 A final group of students headed back to Columbus high schools last week after more than a year of attending online classes from inside their homes.
But for the first time in 25 years, city police officers won’t be walking the halls with them.
And while that could change someday, it won’t happen this academic year.
Columbus City Schools’ longstanding school-resource officer program is in limbo, after officials allowed a contract between the district and the Columbus Division of Police to expire on June 30. Nine months later, a new contract hasn’t been renegotiated. Officials from both sides have expressed interest in setting up a meeting to start the process — while also acknowledging that hashing out a new agreement won’t happen overnight.
“We’re still in the space of considering and looking, researching and digging in,” Columbus Board of Education President Jennifer Adair told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “We really want to get this right, when we think about reimagining what school safety looks like, in terms of a formal police presence, in addition to our own safety and security.”
In the fall, a group of district employees, students and community members tasked with making recommendations on the matter ultimately couldn’t reach a consensus.
Twice in December, board members discussed their desires to retool the district’s relationship with Columbus police, but didn’t vote on any decisions.
Since then, there haven’t been any public discussions on the subject.
Based on the sole recommendation of the fall working group, the school board is now in the process of establishing a new, permanent committee led by board member Carol Beckerle to tackle a variety of school-safety issues, including what a future partnership with Columbus police might look like. Board members Tina Pierce and Michael Cole will also serve on that “culture and climate” committee, along with some administrators. Community members will be asked to participate and give input on specific topics, Beckerle said.
In the meantime, police who once served as resource officers have been redeployed to other assignments, Columbus police Deputy Chief Jennifer Knight said.
Last school year, an armed Columbus police officer was stationed at each of the district’s 19 high schools, some of which are combined with middle schools. The arrangement cost the district $1.23 million for 2019-20.
For much of this school year, the lapsed police contract hadn’t affected district operations. Until February, no Columbus students had returned to school buildings since Gov. Mike DeWine first ordered all Ohio districts to shut down in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
As of Thursday, with the exception of a handful of elementary school classrooms, all Columbus students have returned in a hybrid learning model. They’re split into two groups that attend in-person classes twice weekly and classes online from home the other three days.
Last year, the district spent nearly $6 million to employ 84 of its own unarmed security officers in many buildings, an increase from 53 the previous year. That was in addition to the school-resource officers.
With students back in buildings this academic year, albeit at a reduced capacity, those security officers are monitoring buildings for now, district spokeswoman Jacqueline Bryant said.
Columbus City Schools’ school-resource officer program is in limbo, after officials allowed a contract between the district and Columbus police to expire on June 30.
“The office has a good relationship with CPD and can call upon them if needed,” Bryant said in an email.
Unlike having an officer on-site, Knight told The Dispatch that the district’s requests are now funneled through police dispatchers like any other call for help.
“It’s not just about building security, but also developing relationships,” Knight said of the school-resource officers. “Our goal is to intercede prior to a situation becoming a criminal act.”
The Columbus Board of Education isn’t alone as it mulls whether police should have a role in schools.
Nationwide protests over the 2020 death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, while his neck was pressed under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer, have spurred similar demands of other schools across the country, particularly due to the disproportionate impact of policing on students of color.
In the 2015-16 school year, Black students comprised 15% of the school population nationwide but accounted for 31% of arrests, according to the most-recent data from the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights.
About 61% of Columbus students are Black or multiracial, but they accounted for 82% of expulsions, 77% of out-of-school suspensions and 72% of in-school suspensions, according to the data. A breakdown of arrests and referrals to law enforcement by race wasn’t listed.
In Columbus, a group of alumni, students and parents — under the name “CPD out of CCS” — first pushed for the permanent removal of school-resource officers, just weeks before the district’s contract expired. Several students spoke about feeling threatened in their schools during a June school board meeting. A crowd of hundreds also protested outside board president Adair’s home.
Organizers of the group CPD out of CCS, including, Kanyinsola Oye, right, a student at Howard University and a Columbus Alternative High School alumna, protest last June outside Columbus Board of Education President Jennifer Adair’s house in this Dispatch file photo.
In a Thursday email to The Dispatch, the group’s leaders said they’re disappointed to hear district officials discussing a possible relationship with police again, “a choice that actively ignores student voice” and will endanger students, they said.
The group has pushed for more counselors in buildings to support students.
“We are not satisfied with the current state of things, as our mission is to amplify student voice and end all forms of policing in CCS, and we will not stop until this goal is achieved.”
Elsewhere incentral Ohio, the issue of police in schools has divided the Worthington community, after a split school board abruptly voted 3-2 in July, with no community input, to sever its contracts with both the Columbus Division of Police and the Worthington Police Department. Before that, they stationed a resource officer at Worthington Kilbourne and Thomas Worthington high schools, which are in Columbus and Worthington, respectively.
The program had just started in 2018 and the district paid about $190,000 total for the two positions in the 2019-20 school year. The Columbus officer has moved into another role, Knight said. The Worthington officer, meanwhile, decided to retire, city spokeswoman Anne Brown said.
Worthington Board of Education President Jennifer Best, who voted against the move, said the board “does not have any plans at this time to renegotiate contracts” with either police department.
The situation has upset many parents.
Bill Bryant, 56, of the Far North Side, said his biggest concern is that the decision to remove police happened too quickly and unexpectedly to fill the void with other safety measures. His 17-year-old son is a junior at Worthington Kilbourne and his family has lived in the district for 25 years.
He said he felt the program was a success because officers were mentors to some children and “weren’t there to hand out penalties or discipline.” In 2019, an officer helped locate a gun and ammunition a student brought to school, before the situation became violent, Bryant said.
Just last week, a video of a fight in a Thomas Worthington restroom, in which one girl drags another girl to the ground and strikes her repeatedly in the head, made its rounds on social media
“Now it’s a question that’s going to be asked after every incident: If we had a school resource officer, could they have done something?” Bryant said in an email. “Our community is more divided now than I’ve ever seen it, as a result of how this was done… and it’s putting our kids at risk.”
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