School Police to Patrol in Uniform on Campuses : Safety: They will also carry weapons openly. Board of Education members say the reversal of policy is needed to deter crime at middle and high schools.

Saying that a visible police presence at schools will deter crime, the Los Angeles Board of Education on Monday ordered school police to wear uniforms--complete with handgun and baton--while patrolling middle and high school campuses during the school day.

It is the first time in the 28-year history of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s police department that officers will be required to wear uniforms while patrolling corridors and lunch grounds. Under current district policy, officers assigned to campuses wear business clothing and conceal their weapons.

The new uniform requirement, which takes effect Wednesday, was propelled to the forefront of district safety issues after a student was shot and seriously injured in a Dorsey High School hallway on the first day of school last month.

Two plainclothes school police officers were nearby when the shooting occurred. “Those officers were in sight of the perpetrators,” said school police chief Wesley Mitchell. “If they had been in uniform, it may have, if not stopped them, at least caused them to think twice before taking the action.”

The board’s action Monday reverses past policy that steered away from a high-profile police presence on campuses. It comes amid intensified pressure to improve school safety.

Last winter, Supt. Sid Thompson called for the use of metal detectors at all middle and high schools after the fatal shooting of a student at Fairfax High School. Later, the school board adopted a tough policy of straight expulsion for any student caught carrying a gun or other weapon to school.

On Monday, Thompson called the uniform requirement “another large step toward making schools safer.” Thompson had earlier opposed the requirement.

Before approving the policy on a 6-0 vote, with one board member absent, school police officials and board members said that they found no opposition to the new policy that only years ago was hotly debated and turned down.

“I know this has been on ongoing issue for this Board of Education and prior boards of education and it has been rather controversial in prior years,” said board member Julie Korenstein. “But I believe we have reached a point in history for this board of education in terms of protecting our students as well as campus police officers.”

School board member Mark Slavkin called the move “a sign of the times” and said he believed students are more inclined to respect a uniformed officer “than some guy in a coat and tie.”

Mitchell said the original intent of the no-uniform policy was to allow officers to foster non-threatening relationships with students on campus. It was embraced by the school board in the mid-1980s, when school safety issues focused primarily on troubles among students, and there were fewer worries about street violence spilling onto campus.

Until now, school police were authorized to wear uniforms only at special events such as football games and dances and while in marked cars on street patrol near schools.

But in recent years, as random violence has racked the city, school police have found that they are increasingly confronting outsiders and non-students.

“We need to be visible to people who do not know that we are police officers,” Mitchell said.

Each of the district’s 49 high schools is assigned one or two permanent officers. Of the district’s 53 middle schools, 19 have no officers assigned to them because of funding shortages.

The district spends $24 million of its general fund money to pay for the police force, which a recent management audit said was poorly equipped. Mitchell said officers carry .38 caliber revolvers because the district cannot afford the 9-millimeter semiautomatic handguns that all Los Angeles police officers carry.

Joseph Cervantes, senior dean of students and discipline at Manual Arts High School, said he fully supports the new policy. Two police officers are assigned to his school, which is near the Coliseum.

“On campus, we know who the police officers are, and the kids know,” Cervantes said. “But having police in uniform on the beat while patrolling the perimeter will be a more visible deterrent to outsiders. Otherwise, they look like schoolteachers.”