SRO committee finalizes new survey questions
Students asked if they still support program
The Osceola school board committee formed to explore and revamp the county’s school resource officer program on Wednesday finalized questions it hopes to include in future end-ofyear student and staff surveys.
The questions, which were devised for students of all grade levels and school employees, aim to gauge opinions on interactions with campus law enforcement. One question, asked only to staff and students in middle and high schools, asks whether they support the SRO program.
“I think this is a solid question,” said Steve Montiero, committee chairman and traffic analyst for
WKMG-Channel 6. “It’s the one question we literally ask everybody, so why don’t we ask the students?”
The committee was created after the Osceola County Sheriff ’s Office made national headlines after Deputy Ethan Fournier, an SRO stationed at Liberty High School in Poinciana, slammed 16-year-old Taylor Bracey to the ground while trying to break up a fight.
Fournier is currently on administrative leave pending the investigation and is no longer the school’s flag football coach.
Sheriff Marco López, who has not attended previous committee meetings but was represented Wednesday by Maj. Dan Weis, turned the investigation of the incident over to the Flor
ida Department of Law Enforcement.
Questions about how SROs are trained and the roles they play on campuses were raised following the incident. The Orlando Sentinel previously reported that there are few state mandates on what sorts of training are given to the officers, leaving agencies to fill the gaps, often with differing outcomes, including the frequencies of officer involvement in behavioral matters.
Among the meeting’s objectives is to more specifically delineate the responsibilities of SROs beyond the contracts between the Osceola County School District and local law enforcement agencies that have officers stationed on county campuses and charter schools.
Currently, contracts between the school district and the sheriff ’s office and the Kissimmee and St. Cloud police departments only contain broad language as to SRO requirements and a stipulation that officers are not to be involved with student disciplinary matters.
Julius Meléndez, the school board member who created the committee, hopes to finalize its new policies by the end of this school year. After that, he said, the school board would work to rewrite its contracts.
The committee’s next meeting is scheduled April 13.
“This is a true collaborative effort, with the community and law enforcement working with the school district,” Meléndez said.
One item the committee will address in a future meeting is whether SROs should wear body cameras while on duty. Weis said its school resource deputies, including Fournier, are not fitted with body cameras but that the agency is exploring costs in providing them.
Both Weis and KPD Chief Jeff O’Dell are in favor of considering that as a requirement. St. Cloud Chief Pete Gauntlett, who has been present at the committee’s previous two meetings, was absent Wednesday.
“Every cop I’ve talked to — they don’t like the body cam until they have one on,” said Montiero, a reserve Florida Highway Patrol trooper. “... I think they do wonders.”