Cut in Police Assigned to Schools Opposed

City Schools Police Chief Alex Rascon opposes the cuts being made in the number of city police assigned to help his officers keep the lid on trouble around San Diego schools.

As an alternative, Rascon wants Police Chief Bob Burgreen to transfer back to the street some or all of the 28 officers now assigned full-time to teach drug education in sixth-grade classrooms, “because it doesn’t take a full-blown cop to get the anti-drug message across.”

Burgreen has reduced by 38%, from 13 to 8, the number of officers on the school-based task force, as part of his move to put more cops on general street duty to fight crime.

The school task force patrols around problem schools before and after classes, handles arrests and generally remains available on a moment’s notice to respond to campus blow-ups.

Rascon and many principals are worried the cutback “spreads even thinner the only law enforcement body assisting us in the schools” at a time when school-related crime has reached its highest levels ever, soaring 16.5% last year alone.

“I’m not saying that (drug education) is not good, but I am saying, ‘Please be a cop first, and a teacher second.’ ”

The drug education program is called DARE (for drug awareness resistance education), and it has strong advocates among police both locally and nationwide. These supporters insist that only sworn, uniformed officers have the credibility to impress students about the dangers of drugs.

In fact, police departments and school districts which want the DARE curriculum are required to use only sworn, uniformed officers to teach the curriculum. DARE is jointly owned by the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles Unified School District and its policies are determined by a national advisory board of law enforcement officials.

“I know some (police) agencies have opted out and gone to other programs,” San Diego Assistant Chief Cal Krosch said, referring to school districts where police departments teach anti-drug education with community service officers--uniformed but non-sworn employees with less police training and lower salaries.

Krosch said the San Diego Police Department “will study whether the goals of DARE can be done in another way” but that there would be no quick decision.

The 28 people now assigned to DARE cost the police about $1.8 million, of which $1.65 million comes from local taxes. The cost of the school task force is being cut from $766,000 to $466,000 by the reassignment of five officers to non-school tasks.

Burgreen has also slashed from seven to one the number of officers to monitor elementary students who control crosswalks as members of the school safety patrol. Those reassignments to street duty will save $407,000. DARE officers will be asked to oversee traffic safety patrols during their spare time between teaching classes, Krosch said.

Despite protests from some Rancho Penasquitos parents to the traffic patrol safety cuts, Rascon agrees with those reductions.

“Those things--teaching kids how to cross the street, bicycle safety, etc.--are all good programs but they can easily be done by community service officers, who already do a lot of traffic-related duties,” Rascon said.

“But that’s true for DARE, too. Times have changed. We need police to do law enforcement and we need to assign these other duties to (community service officers).”

Rascon uses community service officers to patrol certain San Diego elementary schools because he does not have enough money to have sworn school officers except at junior and senior high schools.

“They carry a hand-held radio, they are dressed in blazer and tie, have a professional presence--they work well and provide excellent service,” Rascon said. “There is no reason why (community service officers) in uniforms could not do an excellent job as well teaching anti-drug education.”

Krosch said that, while his department appreciates Rascon’s priorities, police staffing is a decision for San Diego police.

“We feel DARE has been effective and we are not yet ready to scrap that effort without looking at what the alternatives are,” Krosch said. In the meantime, he said that Burgreen “believes we have not diluted the task force entirely, that we can cover the critical schools.

“If it turns out we don’t have enough officers, we will have to reconsider.”