Group wants officers out of schools

A city community activist group has embarked on a petition drive to remove police officers from schools in the Kingston City School District.

Rise Up Kingston has posted an online resolution demanding that officers, including ones at Kingston High School, be removed and the funding for them be redirected elsewhere.

The Kingston school district has two police officers at Kingston High School and one at J. Watson Bailey Middle School under an agreement with the Kingston Police Department, as well as one at M. Clifford Miller Middle School through a contract with the town of Ulster.

The resolution asks for people to sign it.

“We demand the $369,368.90 our district committed to spend in the 2019-2020 school year to criminalize our children should be used for counselors and education, not to feed the School to Prison Pipeline,” the resolution says.

School Board President James Shaughnessy said, “We understand the concerns of people signing the petition and we are going to look at that.”

The group says its demands are:

• An immediate and permanent cancellation of contracts with Kingston Police Department, Ulster Police Department and all law enforcement;

• A commitment to reinvest those funds into mental health and community resources for the children in the district;

• Investigate all complaints of police violence and misconduct that have been reported to the school district.

The resolution indicates why Rise UP Kingston thinks the removal of the School Resource Officers is important.

“Students, Parents, Family Members, Teachers, & Community Members demand our children see a brighter future - one where they are supported, not criminalized,” the group said in the petition.

The petition claims that “Time and time again, children in the Kingston City School District have fallen victim to racial profiling, violence, sexual harassment, and trauma at the hands of the police. Due to the lack of Police Accountability, no justice has been served for most of the children who have been harmed.”

“We do not understand why we have police in our schools,” the resolution said. “The narrative that Police make things safer has been disproved numerous times, An SRO (School Resource Officer) at Marjory Stoneman Douglas never even entered the school during the shooting.”

There are other reasons, the group said.

“Police contact can also hinder children’s educational performance through negative health consequences related to stress, fear, trauma, and anxiety,” the group said.

Kingston Police Chief Egidio Tinti and Schools Superintendent Paul Paladino could not be reached for comment.

However, a 2018 Facebook posting about the four officers deployed to schools details the officers’ training and mission.

“An SRO, or School Resource Officer, has an extremely challenging role that requires inter-municipality cooperation between the local government and the school district,” the posting said. “Despite its logistical challenges, it’s become an in-demand role in Districts across the United States as parents, community members, and Boards of Education demand a high level of accountability from school safety plans.”

“According to the New York State School Board’s definition, the SRO’s primary duty is to protect the school’s environment and to maintain an atmosphere where students, teachers and staff feel safe,” the posting said. “SROs are specially trained and receive regular professional development regarding school systems, student populations and developing relationships with school administrators, teachers and students.”

The posting detailed specific training that SROs need to accomplish in addition to training in order to become officers in the first place.

“After this licensing requirement, School Resource Officers must attend further training with the Criminal Justice Services Youth Service Training department,” the posting said. “This is an intensive course that prepares a police officer to work in an academic environment so that officers will be able to function more effectively in schools. Training includes academic organizational structure, counseling, handling special needs students, violence in the school, gang activity, creating drug free schools and crisis management,” the Facebook posting said.

According to the posting, Kingston school resource officers duties are:

• Peer mediation for conflict resolution;

• Safety instruction for students and parents (substance abuse, Internet safety, bullying prevention);

• Conference with school staff to assist regarding law enforcement and crime issues;

• Attendance at parent, school safety, and other required meetings;

• Liaison with community agencies and organizations that assist youth and families;

• Assist principal and administration to develop plans and strategies to prevent or minimize dangerous situations in schools;

• Maintain a vigilant eye and ear in the community as a preventative measure;

• Respond to emergency situations in school;

• Initiate law enforcement action if necessary;

• Not school disciplinarians. They are not involved in disciplinary actions that do not constitute violations of the law.

During a 2019 Kingston School Board meeting, members and Paladino defended officers being in three district schools.

Padalino said at that meeting that steps were being taken to have the police be a reassuring security presence rather than an intrusion into students’ lives.

Padalino said a Peaceful Guardians program helped police work differently in an academic setting than they would during their municipal shifts.

“The Peaceful Guardians program is looking at the social, emotional health and well-being of the adults ... and giving them an opportunity to look at themselves, look at their jobs, look at their relationships with others,” he said at the time. “Now, in this part of the spring, they’re working with students. Then when they’re done, they’re going to bring them together. It’s relationship building.”

In an email, Town Supervisor James Quigley said ‘the town of (Elected Officials and Police Administration) decline to comment.”

Objections to the police presence had been voiced by several members of the group Rise Up Kingston, who said there are other methods of addressing issues. Those objections were aired in 2019 long before police protests were mounted all over the U.S. after the death of George

Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis.

“Our community members are outraged that the school district pays almost $400,000 a year for police to be in school, adding to the national crisis of the school-to-prison pipeline,” member Beth Kapps said at the time. “... [The] fact that there are police in schools with children is criminal.”

District parent Lisa Royer called for a change in policy at the time, noting her daughter was injured in a November 2017 incident off of school grounds when a high school resource officer was attempting to arrest another girl for trespassing. The Kingston Board of Police Commissioners in January 2018 dismissed a complaint against the officers involved.

At the time, the school board president cited an example of what might happen if officers were removed. “Let’s assume that we did get rid of them and had no SROs in the middle schools and the high school, and we had an incident where someone came in with a weapon,” Shaughnessy said. “We wouldn’t have five people here; we would have 100 people here wanting to speak about that.”

On Tuesday, the school board president said that still remains true but that he “understands the concerns of having armed peace officers” in schools.