Salem-Keizer Public Schools hires nine new security staff positions
Salem OR Dec 20 2021
Salem-Keizer Public Schools is spending $600,000 on nine new security staff positions and a supervisor, using more than half the nearly $1 million saved from ending school resource officer contracts earlier this year.
District officials said plans have not been made for the remaining $400,000. Because the money is part of a “security” line item in the approved 2021-22 district budget, it has to be used in that category.
Perry told the school board at a recent meeting that additional security personnel is needed to address increased fighting in local schools, as well as serve schools that have increased square footage due to bond construction and better cover absences for other security specialists.
The announcement comes just weeks after public reports showed an uptick in fighting this fall compared to the same time in 2019 — the last term students were in the brick-and-mortar schools full time.
Latinos Unidos Siempre youth and community activists urged the removal of resource officers for years, saying their presence brings harm to students of color through discriminatory policing and discipline.
They’ve repeatedly called on Perry to reinvest the money saved into efforts to support students of color, including hiring more educators and counselors of color.
In a statement sent to the Statesman Journal, LUS leaders said they were “very disappointed in this decision.”
“From the very beginning, our demands for the removal of SROs included equitable reinvestments,” LUS wrote. “We specifically asked for these funds to not be reinvested into ANY FORM of policing, including security.”
Three types of security workers have historically served Salem-Keizer schools. The most public in recent years has been school resource officers, who are active law enforcement officers.
In years past, Salem-Keizer’s SRO contracts with both Keizer and Salem police departments, as well as the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, paid for 11 officers and totaled more than $963,000.
Their responsibilities included developing plans and strategies to prevent or minimize dangerous situations, conducting criminal investigations and referring students to community resources. The officers had the ability to arrest students.
District officials previously said about 40% of the officers’ time was spent investigating allegations of child abuse. Some community members during public meetings about the contracts testified that they’d seen officers build relationships with students and help with important investigations and that they believe the officers prevent large school atrocities.
But in the wake of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer last year, a new surge of opposition grew in Salem. Dozens of people spoke at Salem-Keizer board meetings and attended protests, and hundreds signed petitions to remove officers from the schools.
Individuals opposed to SROs shared personal experiences or pointed to statistics showing how students of color, students who are low-income and students with disabilities are disproportionately likely to be suspended and expelled, have school-related arrests or be put into juvenile detention.
For example, Black students represent 31% of school-related arrests nationwide, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, though they make up about 15% of public K-12 students. They also are three times more likely to be suspended or expelled than their white peers.
In Salem-Keizer, between Sept. 1 and Nov. 5, Hispanic students accounted for 55% of suspensions districtwide, though they make up 45% of the total enrollment.
By comparison, white students accounted for 32% of suspensions, though they make up 42% of the student population.
A similar pattern is seen for the six expulsions listed in this year’s report — students were either Hispanic or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. No white students were expelled in that period.
According to the ACLU, students who are suspended or expelled are nearly three times more likely to be in contact with the juvenile justice system the following year.
Perry announced in March an end to the district’s school resource officer contracts, acknowledging that the district’s SRO program had experienced a “mission drift” and no longer followed the national model.
There are two other kinds of security workers in local schools — those who patrol the grounds at night, who are contracted through Wright Security Enterprises, LLC., and district-employed security specialists.
The district has 41 security specialists, including the nine latest hires. “Field coordinators” are responsible for working closely with security specialists and helping them with anything from strategy to training, co-assistant Superintendent Iton Udosenata said.
Perry told the Statesman Journal specialists do things like walk through the hallways between classes and during lunch to make sure students get to class and break up fights when they occur. They also ensure visitors to campus are properly checked in.
Of the 41 filled positions, 36 are male and five are female, according to data Perry presented Tuesday to the school board. About 49% are white, 2.4% are Black/African American, 41.46% are Hispanic/Latino and 7.32% are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
Udosenata told the Statesman Journal that the number of security specialists per school is based on student population and the number of incidents that occur. Perry told the board the goal is to have three to five security personnel per high school and one or two per middle school.
“I’ve checked in with some of our neighboring districts, with and without SROs, and this is about the same amount of security specialists,” she said, one of which was Portland Public Schools, which has a comparable amount of security specialists in its high schools and also does not have SROs.
Security specialists are not armed, and they do not handle discipline in terms of referrals to police, Udosenata said.
In the event of a fight or incident, Perry said, these specialists would help break it up and explain to the school administrators what happened and who was involved. However, they would not discipline the student, such as assign suspensions or expulsions.
Perry said the district has not heard opposition from the community on security specialists in the past, but she has heard a call for more training.
“The important part of having our own employees is we are including them in our equity training, security training,” Perry said. “(Additionally), we’re looking at some implicit bias training over the course of the year.”
She said these employees will be part of the restorative process.
“Our security specialists are much like some of our other people — front office workers, bus drivers, crossing guards — they’re the first people students see in the mornings,” she said. “We don’t want a policing force. We want relationships with students.”
The number of fights across Salem-Keizer schools has increased by about 42% when comparing Sept.1-Nov. 5 of this year to the same period in 2019 — the last time students attended classes in person all semester. This reflects a national trend.
Fighting violations are up nearly 32% in high schools, about 22% in middle schools and 139% in elementary schools. In elementary schools, the number of fights jumped from 41 in 2019 to 98 this year.
Perry said the money used to hire the security specialists was already designated for safety and security expenses, so it had to be spent in that way. The district left the money there until now to see what kids needed in the return to in-person learning.
Seeing the increased fights, and with the increased square footage from the bond work, they decided to hire security staff.
Federal and state funds, including the Every Student Succeeds Act and Student Investment Account money, have been used to hire more teachers, counselors and social workers, among other social-emotional supports, according to the district.
The $400,000 in remaining unspent security funds from the SRO savings can be used in case of additional safety needs, such as if they need 24-hour surveillance or fire watch on a certain school, Perry said.
“We are hearing loud and clear that the safety of our schools is important,” she said. “What we know is that takes lots of adults and lots of different kinds of adults.”
Perry said these hires did not come from pressure following the SRO contract cuts, and it is not an indication that she plans to renew SROs.
“It was our ongoing assessment of what was happening in schools at this time,” she said. “We really tried to stay in, ‘What are our schools experiencing?’ and ‘What could they use in this moment?’ even though there are people saying they want SROs back.”
Following Perry’s announcement earlier this year to not renew SRO contracts, activists with LUS said it was a win for young people of color in the district.
That said, they also argued the decision didn’t fully accomplish what they’re after.
“(T)he superintendent and school board directors continuously emphasized that they believe there is still a role for police in schools. This is wrong,” organizers said in March. “Police traumatize, criminalize and harm us. We will not stop our work until we have genuinely police-free schools.”
Since, they’ve made several public comments at school board meetings — including to the four new members elected in May — demanding the funds be used for culturally responsive counseling, arts and music education, after-school services and mentoring and tutoring programs.
In June, LUS members planted a flower garden in front of the district’s administrative building in northeast Salem to represent students in the district in need of proper resources and programs to grow.
“Superintendent Christy Perry refused to meet with us after March of this year,” they claimed in the statement released this week, “and instead approved the reinvestment of over half of those funds into security.
“Reinvesting those funds permanently into something that does not include the practices and systems that police students was the start to abolishing the school-to-prison and deportation pipeline in the Salem-Keizer school district,” they said.
Looking forward, LUS leaders said they hope they don’t have to do any next steps and that Perry “does the right thing and reinvest the money back to our students for next year.”
Statesman Journal
