SRO issue stalls
The school board decided last night that it was easier to keep school resource officers in middle and high schools rather than sort through the budgetary ramifications of giving principals the choice to keep them. However, the board did decide to meet with school safety personnel to discuss concerns and look for ways to better track racial disparities in short-term suspensions.
One of the concerns was the use of county funds to hire sheriff's deputies. Superintendent Terry Grier said the county routed about $955,000 from the Sheriff's Office to the school system in 2001 to pay for resource officers. If principals decided they did not want to keep their SROs, would the county request the leftover funds back?
While the SRO issue may be over for the time being, board member Amos Quick still questions their need in schools. Nancy Routh and Alan Duncan are still uneasy about deputies carrying Tasers, a concern that started this whole discussion last year.
"I am not happy about Tasers being put in our middle schools," Duncan said. "This was a decision that was made that I wish was not made."
In a related vein, two recent release of two reports underline the disparity between minority and white students. Action for Children North Carolina published a report earlier this month showing that the rate of short-term suspensions in the state is 45 percent higher than the national rate. The group, which analyzed three years of data, also points out that suspensions double between the fifth and sixth grades, peaking in ninth grade.
The Guilford County Disproportionate Minority Contact group also met with school officials in late February to discuss some disparity data. Interesting points: High Point Police's arrests of juveniles increased 33 percent between 2004 and 2005 while the number of Greensboro Police arrests declined 23 percent during the same time frame.
