The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted Thursday night to largely maintain its existing School Resource Officer program through the start of next school year — with one exception.
The board voted 5-1 in favor of a revised option offered by the district’s leadership following an extensive task force auditing school safety measures, with the revision being one middle school campus operating without an SRO as a pilot program. While several board members expressed the desire to further tailor the SRO program’s Memorandum of Understanding, or binding partnership, with the Chapel Hill and Carrboro Police Departments, the group did not make immediate, significant changes. The approved option will, however, staff more behavioral health professionals at all schools to assist administrators with discipline and intervention.
The decision came after hours of debate where school board members largely agreed that additional school safety measures are needed on CHCCS campuses. The group said they want to prioritize the physical safety of schools, citing examples like ensuring doors are locked and perimeters of campuses are monitored. But the discussion was also partially driven by substantial data gathered by a School Safety Task Force that conducted surveys and meetings with school communities about the role of SROs and general sense of safety. Those conversations and responses led to around 80 percent of polled students and staff saying they felt safe in schools — with additional survey questions indicating that School Resource Officers play a part in those feelings.
School board member Mike Sharp said as recently as six months ago, he was concerned about the racial equity aspects of SROs on campus and the role of police in schools. After seeing the extent of support in the community surveys, however, Sharp said he “changed his tune.”
“Over the course of this process, I feel like we have zeroed in on every aspect of this program to ensure these things are being adequately addressed,” he said. “So, I feel like my cautions six months ago have been mostly settled because we’ve been careful to ensure that if we choose to continue our SRO program in schools, it will basically be done with fidelity.”
“I don’t see the option of removing SROs are forward progress at this point,” Sharp added. “We’d be introducing new players and getting rid of the old ones.”
The School Resource Office program did not see its partnership with the district renewed in 2020, with the district citing the COVID-19 pandemic and classes being held remotely. In 2021, however, the program restarted on an interim agreement with stated focus on mental health and student agency.
According to Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Superintendent Nyah Hamlett, one of the district’s middle schools has been operating without an SRO on campus for the last few months. That led board member Rani Dasi to bring up a suggestion made earlier in the meeting: trying a pilot program at a campus where a full-time behavioral specialist is used to respond to crises instead of a police officer.
“It’s hard to imagine something beyond what I know, so I know police in schools today and I think that makes schools safer,” Dasi said. “But if we go back to research, we know what makes communities safe — what if we pilot that at a school and learn, and help principals and the communities see whether that’s a safer way than having a reactive body in schools?”
Chair of the Board Deon Temne, the lone dissenting vote on the matter, expressed his general concerns with law enforcement on school campuses and the broader need for improved school safety. He said he believes the presence of SROs can create a false sense of security, since one officer is not enough to monitor or protect an entire school.
The board’s decision on Thursday will be relatively temporary. The approved motion extends the district’s Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU, for the School Resource Officers program for 90 days. CHCCS administration said that would allow officers to be present on campuses for the start of the school year in August, but will allow a short window for district leadership to discuss further changes with the local police departments. The topic will likely be revisited during the Board of Education meeting scheduled for July 20.
Both police chiefs of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro Police departments attended the meeting and answered questions from the Board of Education. Chief Chris Atack said he served as a School Resource Officer for many years before assuming his current role with the Carrboro Police Department. He stressed the current guidance for SROs is not getting involved with disciplining students or criminalizing conflicts in schools.
Atack also shared his personal testimony of once being an SRO and said the equity perspectives introduced to him during those years still influence his decision-making today.
“That holistic thinking I had as an SRO is starting to permeate in general,” he said. “These are some difficult discussions for officers to have because they haven’t had those discussions before. The SRO [role], to me, is the ability to build relationships with a community we wouldn’t already have.”
Chapel Hill Police Chief Chris Blue later said if the SRO program continues at the school district, he believes they can craft an MOU to best reflect the interests of the community while also improving the scope of officers’ roles.
“I think if the conversation continues, then speaking to the concerns you have, we can work around that,” Blue said. “We can figure out how to accommodate the need for that presence, while also recognizing the role of law enforcement in the school should be limited. But the specialization that the SRO can provide is invaluable.”
The school board will be updated about ongoing school safety approaches in a future closed session, despite enhancements suggested by the School Safety Task Force being on Thursday’s agenda. District leadership said such updates in closed session is allowable by law.
Photo via Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools.
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