Milwaukee Police Department officers walk up the steps of Washington High School of Information Technology on Wednesday, Sept. 24. (Photo by Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Time span matches period when school resource officers were ordered to return to the district
By Devin Blake
This story was originally published by Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service, where you can find other stories reporting on fifteen city neighborhoods in Milwaukee. Visit milwaukeenns.org.
Milwaukee Public Schools made nearly 900 calls for police service during the roughly three-month period after school resource officers were ordered to return to the district, records obtained from the Milwaukee Police Department through an open records request show.
The records span from March 17 to June 13.
Officers were assigned to MPS in March after a court order required that the district and City of Milwaukee comply with Wisconsin Act 12, a state law mandating the district have at least 25 police officers stationed at schools.
From March 17 through June 13, MPD received 893 unique calls for service. That’s the equivalent of about 16 calls every school day.
Of these calls, 155 were classified as official incidents. An incident can be an actual or suspected violation of law as well as non-criminal events requiring police documentation, including welfare checks and missing persons reports.
The most common incident types were battery or assault (87), missing persons (35) and “trouble” calls (23).
National Association of School Resource Officers Executive Director Mo Canady cautioned against drawing conclusions from call volume alone.
“That number doesn’t shock me,” said Canady, a former school resource officer. “It eventually just becomes about the size of a particular community when we’re talking about those kinds of numbers.”
An MPD spokesperson said officers have “hundreds of positive daily interactions … with students.”
A lack of guidance?
Krissie Fung, a member of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, said the high number of calls to police from MPS shows a lack of clear guidance for school administrators.
The Fire and Police Commission once had authority to create and modify police policies. Under Act 12, that power now rests with the police chief.
“I’m curious what conversations are happening at the school level about when we need to call the police versus when we do not,” Fung said.
Though student resource officers are back at MPS for the current school year, neither MPS nor MPD has released a school-specific policy outlining their roles.
“There need to be more rules around what a [school resource officer] is doing,” Fung said. “There’s a real lack of clarity. There needs to be an institutional layer of protection and transparency.”
Shannon Jones, director of school safety and security for MPS and a former police officer, said the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, signed last spring by the district, MPD and the city serves as the main framework for school resource officers.
The agreement defines police officers’ primary role as “addressing reported crimes at MPS.”
MPD officers should not enforce school rules unless “it is necessary under the circumstances,” according to the MOU.
An MPD spokesperson said in addition to the MOU, mandated training and the department’s existing policy – known as Standard Operating Procedures – help give structure to the role of school resource officer.
Standard Operating Procedure 140 outlines how officers should handle juveniles in custody, detention and processing.
In accordance with Act 12, school resource officers received 40 hours of training that included “comprehensive instruction in adolescent development, conflict resolution and best practices for working in an educational setting,” an MPD spokesperson said.
What isn’t specifically defined in the MOU, standard operating procedures or the law is left to individual principals, Jones said.
Although surprised by the volume of calls and incidents, Jones said he believes students are safer now that officers are back in schools.
A police spokesperson said the department slightly adjusted officer assignments after consulting with MPS and reviewing calls for service.
‘There’s already mistrust’
But, according to critics like Fung, without clear, districtwide operational policies, there is no standard for determining whether officers are improving safety.
The MOU between MPS, MPD and the city also does not spell out districtwide protocols, such as de-escalation steps or parental notification after incidents. Practices at MPS appear to be unclear and inconsistent, Fung said.
“One of the big problems last time there were student resource officers,” Fung added, “was using police to enforce normal school stuff instead of actual law enforcement.”
Another problem with having police in schools, Fung said, is that it disproportionately affects students of color.
Seven of the 10 schools with the most calls for service are on Milwaukee’s North Side, and all of the schools serve majority Black or Hispanic student populations. Half of the schools include elementary grades.
The agreement also does not establish a single, public process for families to request records or file complaints, Fung said.
“This level of transparency should be automatic,” she said.
Nickolas X. Doherty, confronting mass incarceration coordinator at Milwaukee Turners, said the lack of clearly defined roles for police in schools actually underscores a broader problem: the very presence of police in schools.
Doherty said research shows police presence doesn’t improve student behavior or academic outcomes but often makes them worse.
“For many young people, having police in school can be traumatizing,” he said. “They’ve already had negative experiences with police in their communities. Whether they get training or not, it won’t work, because there’s already mistrust and historical injustice – and now that extends into the schools.”
Moving forward
Missy Zombor, president of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors – and a parent of an MPS student – said she has asked for a draft of a school resource officer policy to be presented at an upcoming meeting of the Legislation, Rules and Policy Committee meeting.
Zombor said she wants the policy to include, among other things, clear rules for how officers operate in schools as well as reporting and parental notification requirements.
“The things that aren’t in the [official agreement] that need to be clearer,” Zombor said.
She also wants policies to incorporate student feedback.
Others say the debate over police policy overlooks what would truly help these students.
“Let’s put the things into schools that young people have been asking for – restorative justice practices, credible messengers, programs that support schools,” said Ald. Sharlen Moore, who serves on the Milwaukee Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee.
Doherty said he wants to see a meaningful commitment to the mental health of MPS students.
“Schools have to be not only educational centers – inner-city schools have to be trauma centers,” Doherty said. “Take out those cops and replace them with therapists and psychologists.”
The need for broad collaboration is something Canady said must be firmly in place for officers to make a difference in students’ lives.
“When I was a [student resource officer], I could not have done the job effectively without my teammates who were social workers, school psychologists, school counselors,” Canady said. “It’s not one or the other – it’s what’s best for the child.”
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
This article first appeared on Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.