Journal & Topics Media Group

Police In High Schools? City, District 207 Will Update SRO Agreement


Park Ridge police have had an intergovernmental agreement with Maine Township High School Dist. 207 for several years to supply school resource officers (SROs) to Maine South and Maine East high schools, both located in Park Ridge’s city boundaries.

As the time approaches to consider extending the program, the Park Ridge City Council recently received an anonymous letter raising questions about what changes ought to be made in renewing the agreement.

Police Chief Frank Kaminski said that the high school district has to initiate the process to renew the intergovernmental agreement.

This year, with school buildings closed by the state for several months, and the need to prepare for the fall semester, he expects Dist. 207 Supt. Ken Wallace may start working on it this month.

Kaminski said he is interested in a Restorative Justice program Dist. 207 has been developing, which would give local police a chance to work with the district’s program.

The issues of having SROs on campus have been raised in Park Ridge before. It was more of an issue when Park Ridge-Niles School Dist. 64 considered several years ago introducing a similar program to the Dist. 207 one. Emerson Middle School and Jefferson School in that district are within the Niles village borders, so Dist. 64 needed both Niles and Park Ridge police departments’ agreement. The grade school district finally abandoned the effort.

At the high school level, having officers on campus meant an earlier awareness for the city of a shift from teens smoking regular cigarettes (which was already illegal for underage students) to using e-cigarettes and vaping products, often flavored, which could be concealed in their clothing and used during the school day.

The dangers of using nicotine and cannabis products by young people under 25 led Park Ridge to extend its anti-smoking ordinances to the age of 21, a restriction which the state finally followed.

The city ordinance also developed required classes and fines to discourage repeat offenders. Teens and parents are specifically encouraged to take training rather than pay fines and let it happen again.

Last year as the Illinois legislature pushed for opening recreational marijuana opportunities, which started in January 2020, deaths were already being linked directly to people who had been using the “harmless” vaping products.

General issues of having school resource officers in high schools have been highlighted in places like Chicago, where protests about police officers assigned in public schools have been linked in inner-city schools with allegations of prejudice.

The anonymous letter writer told Park Ridge aldermen a new agreement needs to be improved with “best practices.” The letter implies a lot more, which can’t be confirmed.

“Our community’s children, parents, and educators deserve a thoughtfully crafted and carefully detailed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that clarifies SRO duties and responsibilities and provides explicit requirements for data collection and program evaluation.”

The letter also criticizes the city’s ordinances which penalize minors who are caught vaping.

“Purchase, use and possession-based ordinances are well known to be problematic and ineffective, and are not recommended by substance abuse/anti-tobacco experts as an effective way to address this issue.

“Over the last few weeks, it has become clear that there is some degree of misunderstanding about the data and information I have played a role in circulating on social media and elsewhere about this vaping ordinance. I just want to take this opportunity to make something very clear — neither myself nor any of the other parents, students, and alumni who are involved with this effort to reform our city’s vaping ordinance have in any way impugned our police department or charged officers or administrators with explicit bias or racism…

The issuance of police citations in schools for vaping involves both SROs and administrators, working together, to maintain order through police action. That is problematic. That is the issue at hand. The observed discrepancy in ticketing between schools, whether caused by differences in the number of vaping detection sensors the district installed or anything other combination of factors, is one small piece of a much larger puzzle that our city and school district needs to address. That approach is not evidence-based and not the most effective way to address this serious public health problem facing our youth.”

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