By Sunayana Prabhu
RED BANK – The Red Bank Borough Council approved a resolution Sept. 14 authorizing a shared services agreement with the Red Bank Borough Public School District Board of Education to provide Class III School Resource Officers (SROs) for the 2022-23 school year. The SROs will be assigned to the Red Bank Primary School and to the Red Bank Middle School.
SROs are armed, retired New Jersey police with specialized training to certify for the position.
After being tabled at the July 27 council meeting, the council voted 4-2 to execute the agreement. Council president Kate Triggiano and council member Kathy Horgan motioned and seconded the resolution; council members Angela Mirandi and Jacqueline Sturdivant voted “yes” while council members Ed Zipprich and Michael Ballard voted “no.”
Sturdivant said she was not in favor of the SRO being a “silver bullet” for school safety and recommended a “holistic approach,” addressing behavioral issues of students by having psychologists, counselors and “a community that actually supports and values the diversity to make sure that the students are being treated fairly, with equity.”
Sturdivant also presented a report with research and data from educational, learning and development experts from University of Connecticut, University of Virginia, the Brookings Institute and the National Education Association, which concluded that school employees with guns does not necessarily guarantee safety and instead can be difficult for some students. She noted that, “within Red Bank Borough Public Schools, 90-95% of our population is minority.” (According to a 2019 Pew Research survey, that population has a fraught history with law enforcement.)
“I’m the only minority (on the council) who’s had kids who are minorities who have gone through our school system,” Ballard said, noting a “deeper impact is going to be felt by these kids having a constant police presence while they’re in a learning environment.” He said he felt BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) students and those with disabilities will feel the impact more than most.
“Given my reality, what I’ve actually seen and witnessed and heard from minority students in our schools, I have to vote ‘no,’ ” Ballard said.
Triggiano commended the Red Bank Police Department’s “exceptional” conduct on school grounds. “In the light of living through a well-justified modern civil rights movement in our country… seeing how police do abuse their position of power in other places, are not properly trained in de-escalation, I’m really proud of our police department and their track record,” she said, noting she has only heard positive feedback about the police and said she is “comfortable having an officer around my own child.”
Horgan said she was concerned about “an active shooter coming in and shooting our children, and that’s what this is about. It’s important to have some safety valve there. I don’t think our children are being discriminated against.”
Mirandi said an “SRO is not an end goal” but she observed that “our public school, our board of education, have said they met with the public, they’ve met with the parents. The public, parents say that this is right. So I respect that. I will vote ‘yes.’ ”
Zipprich noted Gov. Phil Murphy’s initiative to form threat assessment teams in schools is “an innovative approach” to school safety and something that led him to vote against SROs. Beginning with the 2023-24 school year every school in New Jersey will be required to have a threat assessment team in place.
“New Jersey has a different approach to SROs than any other state that I’m aware of,” Red Bank Police Chief Darren McConnell said, commenting on the studies presented by Sturdivant. McConnell noted that SROs in most states are regular police officers who could have anywhere from one month to 30 years’ experience. “Our officers are required by statute to be retired police officers, so they have to have 25 years of experience. That’s key to me because 25-year veteran or 30-year veteran police officers dealing with people is a lot different than a brand- new officer.”
McConnell also said the studies presented by Sturdivant “could be looking at any range of police officers in any range of schools from an inner-city school, the rural school to a private school, largely focused on children being disciplined or arrested in school by the police officers or the SROs.” He confirmed that is “completely opposite” to the plan proposed by the board, Jared Rumage, Ed.D., superintendent of Red Bank Borough Public Schools, and himself.
At a public safety meeting June 6, McConnell explained the SRO program to residents. He said the primary goal of assigning SROs to schools is the “safety of the school, the students and the staff.” McConnell said officers are not to be seen as disciplinarians but safeguards that are accessible in an emergency while awaiting a police response, “because even one or two or three minutes can make a huge difference” during an emergency.
McConnell also noted a secondary purpose of the school resource officers is to build trust and rapport with students so threats or crises may be known before they happen and prevented altogether. “That’s my goal,” he said, “and that’s the goal of our school superintendent. It’s to make it very positive.”
According to officials, schools in the Two River area will continue to employ surveillance systems with updated cameras and visitors will be required, as always, to announce their presence and provide identification before entering a school. Each school will also continue to reevaluate and hold monthly drills.
The article originally appeared in the September 22 – 28, 2022 print edition of The Two River Times.
