Issue Position: SROs: Find common ground on community policing and protecting privacy

Issue Position

Reasonable people can disagree about what to do about school safety. For example, police chiefs told me adding School Resource Officers makes community policing easier because the officers and students know each other, so they can develop trust in each other.Privacy experts told me SROs should only be tasked with enforcing the law, not carrying out school discipline. They also told me students who don't know any better sometimes say stuff to a SRO that they shouldn't be saying without a lawyer present, especially if an SRO is wearing a body camera.

Both sides bring something positive to the conversation: Community policing is a proven way to cut crime but students shouldn't have to be afraid of unintentionally saying the wrong thing in front of police either.

My mission is to bring advocates and stakeholders from all sides together to find common ground, one where our local police can use the best community policing techniques to cut crime and build trust in their communities while respecting students' rights to privacy.

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