Minnesota Senate amends school resource officer bill, sends back to House

The Minnesota Senate approved a bill that would lift restrictions on the kinds of restraints school resource officers may use on students, after a prolonged debate triggered by Republican lawmakers who wanted to instead fully repeal the law that imposed those regulations in the first place.

Senators also included an amendment allowing educators to restrain students in order to prevent them from stealing or damaging school property, which means House lawmakers must now weigh in on the new language. The bill passed 57 to 9.

Sen. Bonnie Westlin, DFL-Plymouth, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, said the legislation’s origin “included the voices of many Minnesotans.” Lawmakers faced backlash last year when law enforcement leaders said they were left out of discussions over the ban on restraints.

“Our work to clarify the roles of SROs has been centered on the belief that our schools are institutions of learning, and that every adult working in our schools should be there to provide a safe and supportive learning environment,” Westlin said.

Legislative leaders temporarily recessed Monday’s floor session after Republicans introduced an amendment that would spike the bill completely and undo a 2023 tweak to state law that led several police chiefs and sheriffs to pull their officers out of schools in late August.

Essentially, under last year’s provisions school resource officers could restrain a student only if it was all but certain they were about to physically harm themselves or others, even if they were breaking the law. That led about 40 agencies to pull their officers out of schools.

Several kept their officers on campus. And in some cities, including Bloomington, police departments beefed up their school resource officer programs. Legislators faced criticism last year for not inviting law enforcement leaders to weigh in on the original bill. Sen. Eric Pratt, R-Prior Lake, called it a “failed provision” with a “rotten base” during debate on the bill.

“We’re here because we passed a provision in the education bill last year that bypassed the judiciary and public safety committee where law enforcement would have had the opportunity to weigh in,” he said. “We broke our process. We rushed the bill.”

Several Republicans spoke in support of the amendment, triggering a nearly hourlong recess and a debate just as long over whether the caucus may continue debating it. The amendment failed with a few Republicans joining Democrats in the vote.

Republicans successfully introduced another amendment, which will allow teachers and administrators to restrain students to prevent them from stealing or damaging school property. Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, channeled Democrats’ frustration that the amendment’s inclusion means it must now be renegotiated with lawmakers in the House.

“I just can’t believe where this bill ended up and I hope we get something better out of conference committee,” she said.

Sen. Zach Duckworth, R-Lakeville, said the prolonged debate over amendments now allows lawmakers to claim the bill as bipartisan.

School resource officers would also explicitly be barred from enforcing campus rules or handing out discipline to students who break them. They would also be coached on how to limit their use of physical holds on students, particularly prone restraint.

DFL legislators say the new bill standardizes the role of school resource officers across the state, which Westlin argued is important “so we know every person operating in our schools has that same training.”

That legislation has faced pushback from some progressives and education advocates who argue it should not allow police to put children in the prone position, which was explicitly banned by the 2023 law. The practice is banned in special education settings.

Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a pair of clarifications to the law, which said police use-of-force statutes override those newer campus-based ones, leading some agencies to restore their school resource officer programs. Rep. Cedrick Frazier, DFL-New Hope, has said the new legislation codifies those clarifications.

Senate Republicans, like their counterparts in the House did last week, used Monday’s floor session to criticize several school discipline policies the Legislature passed last year. Lawmakers also placed stringent restrictions on when educators may issue recess detentions and barred suspensions for students in kindergarten through third grade.