Peoria Public Schools close to forming armed police force
PEORIA IL November 27 2019 An armed and certified Peoria Public Schools police department and shorter terms for school board members are closer to reality following positive votes at last weekend’s state board of education’s Joint Annual Conference in downtown Chicago.
The voting body, comprised of hundreds of school board members from across the state, recommended that the state Legislature allow a fully certified police department to operate in Peoria Public Schools and that school board terms align with state norms and be reduced from five years, to four.
“The only opposition (from voters) was for the police department,” said Peoria school board member Dan Walther, who represented PPS at the conference. “And that was because some thought it was a local issue that the local school board should resolve.”
The school police department was decertified by the state’s Law Enforcement Training and Standards board in 2014, and replaced with an unarmed security force and one school resources officer, a certified Peoria police officer, at each of the city’s three high schools. Saturday’s recommendation would bring back the certified police department with full authority to exercise police powers, pending approval of the state Legislature.
PPS is believed to be one of the few, if not the only, school district in the state that doesn’t elect board members for four years. Saturday’s resolution also recommends to the state Legislature that it shorten the length of time between a board member’s election and being seated on the board. Currently, board members elected in spring municipal elections are not sworn in until the first meeting in July. The recommendation would move up the seating of new board members to the first regularly scheduled board meeting following certification of the election results.
Walther said the recommendations appear to have the support of the local delegation to the state legislature and could be brought up for a vote as soon as that’s body’s spring session.
The conference also opposed for the second consecutive year its support of legislation that would let school districts set school safety and student protection policies and allow trained armed school teachers and staff. The vote, split primarily between urban and rural school districts, failed 198 to 249.
