Santa Rosa schools see return of police presence due to concerns about student violence
The Santa Rosa City Schools District moved to place a police officer at each of its high schools for the next two weeks due to an increase in violent fights on campuses.
The district eliminated police officers from its schools in 2020 for social equity reasons, and now some parents, students and teachers are hoping that policy will be reconsidered.
Montgomery High School in Santa Rosa used to have a school resource officer, or SRO, named Officer Luigi. He was a familiar face around campus and teacher Jim La France said he had a calming influence on both students and staff.
"When I was breaking up a fight, and I've broken up numerous fights in my career, having Luigi there changed my feelings of safety," he said. "And that, for me, was the important piece."
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But in 2020, amid the Black Lives Matter protests, the school board halted the SRO program, leaving Montgomery with no police presence. In recent years, there has been an increase in violent, sometimes armed, fights on campuses in the city, and in March, a student was stabbed to death at Montgomery during an altercation.
"That tragedy opened the eyes to what was happening here that maybe we weren't aware of," said parent Stephanie Taylor.
So, she and fellow parent Melissa Stewart founded a group called the "Safe Campus Alliance" which has been lobbying school board members to make changes, including bringing back the SROs.
"I do want safety resource officers on our campuses, particularly Montgomery and all the other campuses," said Stewart. "I think what's happening in our schools requires that kind of immediate action."
Superintendent Anna Trunnell, concurs, because, on Sunday, the district announced an agreement with Santa Rosa PD to place an officer at each of the high schools and occasionally some of the middle schools for the next two weeks, until winter break. It comes after another knife fight was broken up on Dec. 7 at nearby Slater Middle School.
"With the increases that we're starting to see in some student violent behavior, and some acts of violence, I felt that it was necessary," said Trunnell, "while we have a conversation on Wednesday at our board meeting around additional solutions around school safety."
But Trunnell took the action without getting approval of the school board that cancelled the SRO's in the first place. Board president Stephanie Manieri said it doesn't bother her that she did.
"Because this isn't a policy decision, Superintendent Trunnell took the action that she deemed necessary to keep our students and our staff safe, and I fully support her decision on this matter," said Manieri. "And, while it's a short-term solution, we're really interested in talking about a long-term solution."
Despite the action, on Monday morning a group of students protested outside Montgomery High, demanding permanent measures to address the safety issue.
"It's very likely, in my opinion, that we will return after winter break and it will be the same as it was before," said protest organizer Addison Klosevitz. "So, we're continuing to push for change in the SRO program and change in other ways that will affect our school in ways that we can see, and that we can feel, when we return back from winter break."
The school board will take up the issue of violence at its next regular meeting on Wednesday. The Superintendent said she will be interested to see what ideas and solutions they may have. It's hard to say if removing the school officers is the reason for the increased violence, but as one parent put it, "It didn't help."
