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Stafford County educators show overwhelming support for law enforcement on campus

Stafford County teachers overwhelmingly support police officers in the schools.

A Stafford Education Foundation survey found that roughly 90% of county teachers surveyed want school resource officers, while 5% surveyed were neutral, and 5% were anti-SRO.

The SEA 300 pages of comments that were heavily in favor of SRO’s proactive roles in providing safety, guidance, mentorship, and community outreach for all staff and students.

“My initial forecast was that the pro percentage might be 70%, and I was completely blown away that we broke such high percentages and the number of comments about how imperative SROs are to [Stafford County Public Schools], states Stafford SEA President Christian P. Peabody.

National calls for defending police and removing SROs from schools in favor of mental health resources that occurred in June prompted the survey.

During the county’s June 9 school board meeting, Garrisonville District School Board Member Pamela Yeung and Falmouth District School Board Member Dr. Sarah Chase suggested a review of an agreement with the school division and the county sheriff’s offices that places law enforcement officers inside county schools. According to school board documentation, some members of the school board have never read the MOU.

The call for a review came in the wake of multiple school divisions around the country ending their relationships with law enforcement in response to the alleged killing of George Floyd by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. On June 9, Prince George’s County, Md. Board of Education passed a plan to terminate its relationship with the police department.

“This is not something that just came because of George Floyd, this is something that I was looking for a while,” said Yeung.

“There’s a feeling for young black students, the fear of the police… There are SROs that pick on these kids on purpose and so we need to make sure that we have the right culture and the right SROs,” said Yeung.

According to the school division’s 2019-2020 MOU, the purpose of the SROs is to ‘facilitate the effective delivery of law enforcement services and assist with matters related to safety, security, and the exchange of information.’ SROs additionally ‘assume primary responsibility to requests for assistance from administration and coordinating the of other law enforcement resources to the school,’ according to the MOU.

The school board has made no indication that it will end its relationship with the sheriff’s office, or terminate the 31 SROs in its schools. Just in March, an SRO at Mountain View High School discovered a loaded handgun in a 14-year-old student’s locker.

“I’m not personally at a place where I want to get rid of the SROs,” said Chase.

Following a school shooting in Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. that killed 17 and injured 17 more, Stafford County Sheriff David Decatur at the request of the school division, worked with officials on a plan to add more school resource officers in classrooms. The sheriff, in cooperation with the school division, worked out a half-million-dollar plan to add three SRO’s to as many county elementary schools.

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