Cash-Strapped School Districts Opt to Trim or Disband Police Forces

In the aftermath of the 1999 Columbine school shooting, school districts around the country beefed up their campus police and security forces, hiring extra officers with the help of state and federal funds.

But that trend is starting to reverse in some cash-strapped districts in California and elsewhere in the nation that are trimming the size of their school security corps rather than cutting academic programs further. The Oakland, Walnut Valley and Pomona school districts recently discontinued their campus police departments to save money, relying instead on municipal or county law enforcement to patrol school grounds.

Such reductions have prompted an outcry from parents afraid they will lead to rising campus violence. But the school districts, while acknowledging they are forced to make tough choices, contend that safety will not be jeopardized.

Over the last year, districts in California, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Michigan and other states have eliminated school police officer positions. The initial layoff numbers nationwide are in the hundreds but many more are expected this year, according to the National Assn. of School Resource Officers, which represents 12,500 school police officers. In addition, training, hours, patrol routes and funding for bullets, radios or vests are being reduced in some districts.

School officials expect security forces to shrink further because post-Columbine federal funding for more than 6,000 campuses is drying up and other money under the federal Safe and Drug Free Schools initiative has been reduced.

Paul Houston, executive director of the American Assn. of School Administrators, said many districts are cutting police forces or considering such a move because school security has been eclipsed by efforts to boost academic performance. Unlike academic testing, security officers are not mandated under state and federal law, he added.

After the Littleton, Colo., rampage, in which two students at Columbine High School killed 12 students, a teacher and then themselves, districts reacted by adding metal detectors, guards and officers. “Now we’ve had several quiet years,” Houston said.

“No Child Left Behind is driving everything now,” he said, referring to the federal law that emphasizes school testing and accountability. School safety “is not a front-burner issue. Obviously, now people are responding to what the front-burner issue is now, which is test scores.”

Curtis Lavarello, executive director of the national school resource officers group, lamented that change: “In these times when we seem to be very interested in safeguarding bridges, ports and government buildings, we’re not considering a viable target, which is our children.

“It’s a very disturbing trend,” he said. “It’s likely to get worse before it gets better,” he said.

The San Diego Unified School District Police Department, which protects 143,000 students in 183 schools, has reduced its force from 52 officers to 35, Chief Don Braun said. Twelve positions were eliminated with the loss of the federal funds.

“You have less people trying to handle the same volume of calls for service,” Braun said, adding that schools may end up waiting longer for a response to “calls that don’t require an immediate response,” such as burglary, battery and drug- or alcohol-related incidents.

Other school boards are deciding that municipal police and sheriff’s department officers are better trained and equipped to deal with campus crime than school officers and may be willing to do so at no additional cost.

A Jan. 15 shooting at Pomona High School alarmed the community recently, especially because the school board in December had voted to save $600,000 by disbanding its police department.

Deveda Steward, 16, was accidentally shot in the chest when a gun that a boy brought to school discharged in class. Steward is expected to fully recover from her wounds.

“That put us all in shock. We haven’t had a kid shot on campus in years,” said Emett Terrell, a deputy superintendent.

But he and others doubted that the school police department could have prevented such an incident, because its officers were not stationed on each campus full time.

The seven officers were responsible for patrolling more than 40 schools each day.

“They’re not at the gate asking questions,” Terrell said.

Beginning this month, the district will rely on the Pomona police and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for protection. Officers will field calls and patrol school grounds as part of their other rounds at no cost to the district, although they will not be stationed on campuses, Terrell said.

Kenneth Steward, Deveda’s father, is pleased with the district’s decision. He said he feels more comfortable relying on local law enforcement to protect his daughter.

“I know a few of the school police officers,” he said. “They’re too laid-back.”

Some parents and teachers say school officers are useful because they pay attention to smaller crimes, such as graffiti and fights, and develop relationships with students.

School police officers “know who the drug dealers are on campus, and the kids are comfortable enough with them to say, ‘Hey, something is going to go down,’ ” said Darlene Alvarez, a mother with five children enrolled in the 14,820-student Walnut Valley Unified district in the San Gabriel Valley, which will disband its department this month.

Alvarez’s oldest daughter was threatened after school one day last year by a teenager wielding a pellet gun. Her daughter fled, and school police were notified. Within minutes, campus officers arrested the suspect and several of his friends, including one who had allegedly pulled a knife on another student.

“My kids are very nervous about the idea of the officers not being around,” said Alvarez, who has since quit her job at a hospital so she can pick her children up after school.

Donna Waggener, 40, who has worked as a school police officer for eight years, helped arrest the youth who threatened Alvarez’s daughter. It was not the first time she has stepped in to prevent a dangerous situation.

Last year, a student warned Waggener that a gang fight involving knives and a gun was going to take place at an upcoming football game. She talked to school counselors, administrators and parents. She also patrolled the football game.

Her actions helped avert that fight, she said.

Waggener said she is not convinced the Sheriff’s Department would be as effective as school police officers. “We’re proactive,” she said. “The sheriffs are reactive.”

Diane Hockersmith, assistant superintendent of business services for Walnut Valley, said the district, which had to trim $4 million from its budget this year, chose to disband its department to save money and because it was difficult to recruit qualified officers. Many top-notch applicants were lured away by regular police and sheriff’s departments, she said.

“Obviously the concern was: Will our schools still be safe? And, yes, they will be,” Hockersmith said. “We’ve been assured by the Sheriff’s Department that they will be there.”

The Los Angeles Unified School District so far has spared its 309-officer police department from severe cuts.

“They have scrounged around and in some matter or another found resources to help us out,” said Chief Alan Kerstein.

Nevertheless, the department has about 40 officers available to staff the district’s 80 middle schools. He said those campuses need at least one full-time officer each. Its night patrol force is “razor thin,” he said.

In California, incidents of battery, drug and alcohol abuse, graffiti and burglary on school campuses rose between 1998 and 2001, the most recent years for which data are available, state officials said.

Kenneth Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, said it is disturbing that funding to protect students is being reduced at a time when “school violence is alive and well.”

“The real issue is where you place your priorities,” Trump said. “We can hear from elected officials that school safety is a priority. But the ultimate indicator is in the line item of their budgets.”