Counterpoint: The importance of a police presence in our schools

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With all the backlash against the police the past few years, school resource officers, or SROs, are getting pulled into the muck, to the detriment of our students.

For those who have never worked in a school or attended school since the advent of full time SROs, there seem to be a lot of misconceptions regarding their day-to-day roles in our schools.

They don't spend their days cracking skulls, hauling kids downtown or waiting for an active shooter. They spend them communicating, forging relationships, intervening to de-escalate incidents before the need for disciplinary action and acting as first responders in the event of medical emergencies. The officers who choose the role of SRO are there because they care about our students and our communities. It's not a tough-guy flex.

They deal mostly with the mundane — lost cellphones, fender-benders in the parking lots and other incidents in which a call to 911 or a police nonemergency number would take resources off the streets. With thousands of students in some of these schools, it is not uncommon for dozens of these minor incidents to occur in a single day. SROs' presence in the schools helps ensure that patrol officers are on the streets and available to the public. They work sporting events and school dances. They're present in the hallways and gathering areas between classes. They're present during lunch periods.

For many students, this is their first real interaction with a police officer, and they are seeing them as helpers and as humans. These officers are part of the school community.

It is easy to understand the concerns of the community and lawmakers regarding appropriate restraints ("School cops question new restraint limits," front page, Aug. 17), and those within the schools share those concerns, but the incidents within schools that require any kind of physical intervention are exceedingly rare, and even in those rare cases, the intervention is to redirect students from causing harm to themselves or others, or from encouraging the behavior.

Anyone with children knows that they sometimes struggle with frustration, anger and impulse control, and at times they express themselves in unsafe ways, particularly special-education students. It is also not an uncommon response for students to watch and encourage disruption, often recording video and sharing. It is also an unfortunate fact that sometimes redirecting a student must be done physically to ensure the safety of the student causing disruption and the bystanders. That physicality may be as simple as an arm around the shoulder to lead them away, or in extreme cases, both arms around the students torso and arms. In either case, the decision to intervene physically is never taken lightly and is always the last resort. It is only done when all other options have failed.

Having SROs in our schools is a matter of safety for everyone in the community, and poorly written and unclear laws aside, it goes a long way toward maintaining a safe environment for our students.

It is the difference between a possible eight-minute wait time for a law enforcement response after a situation escalates, or an immediate response when a situation begins, to de-escalate it.

It is the difference between an officer who knows the individual students and knows which approach is most likely to benefit the situation, or an officer who has had no prior interaction with the student, making it more likely that the situation will be misread.

It is the difference between a 30-second response to a medical emergency or several minutes for a 911 call response.

It is the difference between an in-house officer dealing with the minutiae of lost item reports in what amounts to a small town, or pulling officers off the street multiple times a day.

Legislators, fix your mess.

Al Ericksen lives in Maple Grove.