Manor school district creates police force
Travis County TX November 14 2019
The Manor school district is expected to have its own police force by next August, becoming one of the only area school systems to have its own law enforcement.
With little community input, the school board gave the green light last month to create a police force.
Like many suburban school districts that rely on sheriff’s departments for security, Manor currently contracts with Travis County, which provides six deputies for security and law enforcement. Their contract expires in June 2020.
Manor school district officials have started accepting applications for police chief and plan to fill the post. They also plan to purchase vehicles and other equipment in the coming months.
The decision has been a long time coming, said Dan Vera, the district’s assistant superintendent of operations. Manor school administrators had been researching the creation of a police department for about three years.
They ultimately decided to move forward with a plan when they realized it would save the district money, Vera said.
“That’s when we really started looking at it in a serious manner, because we felt like we owed it to the community. … For the same amount of cost, we’re able to get a bigger police force by doing it ourselves,” he said.
Officials plan to invest $700,000 in startup costs. After the first year, they’ll spend about $940,000 annually for 10 officers, rather than contracting $980,000 a year with Travis County for six deputies, he said.
Having more officers gives the district more control over how the officers are trained, what they can do and where they are deployed, Vera said.
“You can customize training, expectations and job responsibility to include not only the responsibilities of enforcing the law, but also responsibilities of additional support for teachers and the administration, whether it be helping clear the hallway, clearing the cafeteria at the end of the meals and making sure that there’s a person out during bus duty,” he said. “There’s a lot of added support.”
But some parents and community members are wary of the effects of law enforcement personnel on campuses.
Shanetra Fowler, a clinical social worker who has three children in the Manor school district, said she has concerns about the district’s future police force. Police in schools can lead to student arrests that aren’t necessary, she said.
“Children should be afforded grace and mercy, not criminal records,” she said.
Fowler suggested that district officials make it clear which actions will be criminalized and which will lead to a trip to the principal’s office. Manor officials should also fund more counselors and mental health professionals, she said.
Vera pointed out that law enforcement officers are already in Manor schools. Creating a police force within the district means Manor’s police officers will be more invested in the well-being of the district’s students.
“We’re looking forward to training our officers and having them be a part of our community,” Vera said. “They can participate in community events. They can get to know our children, get to know our parents, come to different athletic events. We expect and hope that they will become an integral part of the Manor community.”
Andrew Hairston said that the youth justice interest group he works for, Texas Appleseed, would prefer not to see law enforcement in schools at all.
“We are pushing more explicitly for police out of schools and recognizing the historical racism that has been associated with school policing,” said Hairston, who heads the nonprofit’s work to keep students out of prisons. “On a weekly basis, young people are subjected to really significant emotional and physical abuse from police officers in schools.”
However, if Hairston had to choose between deputies from an outside sheriff’s office and a police force within the school district, he said he would prefer an agency inside the district.
“It might make it a bit easier for accountability measures,” he said, adding that parents would have the ability to take it up with the school district, rather than the sheriff’s office, if they are unhappy with the way officers treat students.
Still, he would urge officials to invest in resources that emphasize student safety and wellness, he said.
“Train mental health professionals — like psychologists, social workers and counselors — who can really address some of the complex issues,” Hairston said.
The future police department will be housed at a building on U.S. 290, where the school district houses its student and family support service department, school spokesman Zoheb Hassanali said.
“That building still has plenty of space and is centrally located in Manor, making it easy to get to all 17 campuses,” Hassanali said.
The Round Rock school district over the past year has mulled creating its own police force after both the Williamson County sheriff’s office and Round Rock Police Department said they could not provide law enforcement services past June 2020.
However, parents and community members pushed back against the idea, raising concerns that black and Latino students, who already are disproportionately disciplined at higher rates, could be unfairly targeted and that there would be less accountability if police report to the district.
