It was below freezing on Tuesday as dozens of students from Milwaukee Public Schools marched outside the district’s central office demanding accountability from armed police officers now patrolling some schools.
They were there to support new guardrails on school resource officers, often called SROs.
Those guardrails would limit officer involvement in non-criminal matters like loitering in bathrooms or being disruptive in class. They would also require quarterly public reports on the number of incidents in each school and the demographics of the students involved.
Following the students' rally, the school board committee passed the changes unanimously. They now move to the full school board for consideration.
2023 state law requires police officers in Milwaukee schools
A state law passed in 2023 required Milwaukee Public Schools to create a school-based police program. It did not provide funding for the program.
Placing the officers in schools was part of a shared revenue deal between Milwaukee leaders and the Republican-controlled state Legislature. It provided much-needed funding to the city, but it came with strings attached.
Beginning last March, SROs were assigned to 12 campuses in the district. Now, students want changes to schools’ agreements with Milwaukee's police department.
School board chair Missy Zombor drafted the changes with input from students, who say that policing in schools feeds the school-to-prison pipeline.
“Early contact with the justice system significantly increases the likelihood that students disengage from school all together. And the psychological impacts of constant police presence can be real and lasting, especially for Black students and students with disabilities," Zombor said. "Without clear and strict guardrails, it’s easy for SROs to become the default response to all behavior challenges.”
Students speak out against fear and escalation by school resource officers
More than 30 people signed up to speak in support of the measure at a school board committee meeting Jan. 20. Many students said they see SROs getting involved with school discipline like tardiness or dress code violations instead of handling potential crimes.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reviewed three months of incident reports and found that school resource officers reported over a dozen arrests and wrote $13,000 in citations. The newspaper found that Black students made up 92% of those named as suspects, even though Black students make up around 48% of the MPS student population.
Brooklyn Taylor-Peace is a junior at Riverside University High School. Taylor-Peace says that the presence of an officer with a gun makes students there more afraid to come to school.
“Especially in a school full of children of color that have grown up in the age of the internet, constantly seeing police using lethal force on, neglecting and being dismissive of people that look just like them plastered all over social media and the news," Taylor-Peace said.
Adriana Reams is a senior at Golda Meir Upper School, which doesn’t have an SRO assigned to it. Reams said that both ICE raids and increased police presence in schools are part of an effort to militarize communities.
“Unlawful actions by unchecked ICE agents in Minneapolis and across the country go to show what can happen when law enforcement officers do not have clear and consistent training, guidelines, transparency, and accountability to prioritize safety and de-escalation," Reams said. "It is evident that when law enforcement officers work in communities they are not from, they are more likely to exhibit excessive force and not understand the communities.”
Do school resource officers make schools safer?
Reams and others called into question whether schools are actually safer when armed police are on site.
A 2024 study from UW-Madison found that school police officers did not reduce crime or violence in schools, but instead increase punishment of students through things like suspension.
Elijah Shorts, a senior at Marshall High School said SROs create more fear for him and his classmates.
Asked what he wants to see change, he said, “I just don’t want them in the schools in the first place."
"But if we do win the demands of the rules for SROs, then that’d be great," he added. "I’ll actually be comfortable with that.”
Katherine Kokal is the education reporter at 89.7 WUWM - Milwaukee's NPR. Have a question about schools or an education story idea? You can reach her at kokal@uwm.edu
