Tensions high in Colorado over school resource officer debate, Adams 14 says it has a better alternative

Across the country and here in Colorado, school districts are grappling over whether to have police in school hallways. Some argue school resource officers protect kids, but others say they contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, and in Commerce City, the debate has caused tensions to run high. 

Three years ago, during the pandemic, the Adams County 14 School District ended its SRO contract with Commerce City Police. Since then, the police department has been trying to reinstate SROs in Adams 14 schools, but at this point, the district still doesn't want them back. 

Superintendent Dr. Karla Loría even went so far as to call the police department "abusive" and "authoritarian" over the issue in an email obtained by CBS News Colorado through a public records request. 

Adams 14 is a school district with 62% of students in poverty, and 87% of students who are Hispanic -- one of the largest student Hispanic populations among school districts in the state -- according to data from the Colorado Department of Education. 

 Loría says her district's students are vulnerable, who need supports, not handcuffs.  

"This is about figuring out a different way to support students," she said. "I believe that schools are safe places for students and if students make mistakes, that it's in a school where they can learn about why it was a mistake and how to make it better. When we treat hallways of schools like if they were streets out in the neighborhood, I think we see data that sadly tells us the world criminalizes students too much and too soon."

CBS News Colorado obtained internal emails between Loría and Commerce City Police Chief Darrel Guadnola this year.

In March, the chief wrote to the district saying he didn't agree with the superintendent's requests to have more discretion over SROs, like allowing staff to decide whether or not a child should be arrested, and letting school district staff choose the officers they are most comfortable with to serve as SROs. 

"The city has grave concerns," the chief wrote in the letter, adding that some of the district's requests weren't allowable by law. 

Then at the start of the school year, the discussions heated up, after a student brought an airsoft gun to Lester Arnold High School. 

The police department posted on social media about the incident, reminding the public that Adams 14 still does not have SROs. 

Dr. Loría sent a letter to the police chief in response, not mincing words, writing the chief "has disrespected Adams 14 staff and often operates like an authoritarian."

"With the new chief of police, the fact that you know, they would not even agree to engage in conversation. So who might be the SRO? What are the values and belief systems of those SROs who might come to our schools? Without any say on our part, that is authoritarian in that it does not reflect a true and genuine interest to collaborate to serve a community," she said. "I have an issue with that personally, but most importantly my board has been pretty concerned with that, as well."

She says a comment made in 2022 also left her office with little trust in the city. 

"The interim chief of police at the time, came to one of our board meetings, and in public made comments that after 30 minutes being in a kindergarten class, he could tell which students were going to be in jail," Loría recalled. "That resulted in an immediate gasp from not only board members but community members who were there, because, quite frankly, that is a disrespect to our community."

Chief Guadnola says those comments also concern him. 

"Those comments were made by my predecessor... and that belief and that rationalization is not something that I share," he said. "That's not a philosophy of the Commerce City Police Department."

Guadnola says he's tried to approach things in a more productive way since he was hired in March. 

"I believe very strongly in the program," he said. "So, I do hope we can reinstitute that in the near future."

Asked why it's important for him to put SROs back in the school district, Guadnola said his officers are already responding to calls for service in schools across the district on a frequent basis. 

"In the 2022-23 school year, we responded to Adams 14 schools over 1,000 times and over 70 of those were priority calls for service," he said. "Those are those are gun calls. Those are Narcan calls. Those are assaults. Those are threats. This school year to date, we've had over 250 calls to Adams 14 schools and over 30 of those have been priority calls. So, our officers are in the schools. We are responding to the schools. The difference is the SROs are trained, they're engaged in a way that they want to work with students to be mentors, to be coaches, to be great role models, and examples, and they can develop a relationship with the students that most officers who just respond to those calls don't have."

While there may have been a lot of calls for service, CBS News Colorado found there weren't a lot of crimes on Adams 14 campuses worthy of an arrest and report for the city's crime map online. 

According to the city's crime map data, among all of the middle and high schools in the district, Commerce City police have only reported 45 crimes on those campuses since January 1, 2021, including 33 assaults, eight thefts, one robbery, and three trespassing incidents. That's out of the more than 8,000, or about 0.5%, of listed crimes citywide in the same time frame. 

Regardless, Guadnola says officers being at schools can be incredibly important when situations turn dangerous. 

Last year, he said a Commerce City police officer happened to be in the right place at the right time when he saved a student's life at Adams City High School. The officer used Narcan in his car to revive a student who had overdosed. 

"Time is critical in those situations, and we might not always be able to be in every school, but if we don't have an SRO program in place, then we're rarely going to be available in any school until the call comes," he said. 

He added that another SRO was able to solve a homicide in Adams 14 through his contacts at the school before the program ended a few years ago.

"The rapport that he had built with the students and staff and that organization, made them feel comfortable enough to come forward with information that they just wouldn't come forward to any officer driving by," he said. 

Guadnola says the last SRO contract with Adams 14 in 2019 cost the district about $490,000 dollars for five officers, a price he says he'd make sure would be worth it again in the future. 

"The value of an SRO program is only as good as the willingness of the police department and the school district to work together to further the safety and security of their students and staff," Guadnola said. 

Local debate part of national conversation over the value of SROs for school safety 

But there have been criticisms in Colorado and across the country that police officers in schools can sometimes do more harm than good. 

As CBS News Colorado previously reported, even some students with disabilities like autism have been arrested in schools across the state. 

State data shows 31 of the 98 total student arrests in Colorado public schools last year were students with learning disabilities, that's about a fourth of all students handcuffed on campuses. The data also shows 943 students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement last year. 

Right now, the Brighton 27J School District next door to Adams 14 pays Commerce City Police, and a second separate police department, to have SROs in its schools. 

A CBS News Colorado analysis of school data found in the last school year, 330 students in 27J were referred to police, including 79 students with learning disabilities, but in Adams 14, only nine students were referred to police in the same year, and three of them were students with disabilities. The numbers of students arrested in both districts were redacted by state officials from public records for student privacy. 

Asked about the higher number of arrests in 27J, where SROs are present, versus in Adams 14, where they aren't, Guadnola said, "every parent wants to trust that their kids have a safe place to be in school, and that doesn't change if they're autistic, that doesn't change if they have special needs, and it is incumbent upon law enforcement in the school districts to work together in a manner that's productive for those children."

He says they plan and prepare for the worst with school shooter training courses, and his officers undergo regular training for best practices with students.

"We want to be attentive to their needs and deal with their individual situations as best we can, but we can do that better if we have a relationship with them, and that relationship comes from contact that is day in and day out from SROs who know about those circumstances, and that is something that's lost when you don't have an SRO component in your schools," Guadnola said. 

But Dr. Loría sees it differently, she says even just nine students referred to police last year is too many. 

"We really want to ensure that 100% of our students feel that they have access to these resources, to these opportunities, to understand why they feel the way they do, and to figure out strategies to then overcome those feelings to continue being successful in school, and in life, in the future," she said. 

Adams 14 rolls out alternative solution to SROs, called "YEP"

In addition to in-house security guards, who they call "safety advocates," the Adams 14 School District has implemented another alternative to SROs called the Youth Empowerment Program, or YEP, which intervenes early with students who are exhibiting disruptive behaviors, with a goal to stop more extreme problems before they begin. YEP first rolled out in the spring at one school, and was implemented in three other schools in Adams 14 this year. 

Staff work one-on-one with students to help them through different problems at school or struggles at home in bright rooms that YEP calls "refocus rooms."

"We have a room where students can come in and deescalate themselves, and we are working with organizations and our staff to help or to teach our students mechanisms and strategies to deescalate themselves to talk themselves down from situations," Loría said. "We're very excited about the results that we're having."

Alexander Landau leads the program. He was a victim of a police beating in Denver more than a decade ago, who has since dedicated his life work to social justice projects like YEP. 

"It's transformative," Landau said. "We don't want to criminalize or penalize the behavior. We want to look at this as an opportunity for growth."

Landau says students in all Adams 14 middle and high schools can go to YEP refocus rooms voluntarily for a 10-minute "brain break," or teachers will refer students who are acting out to the YEP rooms to work with a specialist. 

"They would have a more one-on-one talk with our staff," Landau explained. "This is a conversation about accountability, this is a conversation about how do we curb this before this gets to the dean."

YEP also advocates for students facing suspensions and expulsions. 

"As long as I can help one student... that's what I'm here for," says Mari Jane Torres, lead teacher for YEP in Adams City Middle School. "We are somebody that understands them. We've been there. I've been there."

Tia Davis, executive director of the Triloge People Group, a nonprofit that assists YEP, says the program can have its challenging days -- students aren't always amenable to receiving help right away. 

"The days that I feel that are probably the most challenging pieces for me, is when I don't get all the story... So, that's okay if it doesn't happen in that moment. It doesn't always happen in a day, sometimes it takes a couple of days, sometimes it takes a week, and that's alright, as long as I'm getting enough nuggets in that story, and as long as the child is willing to do the exchange," Davis explained. "What I've noticed is even when our kids are exhibiting extremely challenging behavior, they just want somebody to check in on them as a human."

Davis, Torres, and Landau say they're not sure if SROs in Adams 14 would be helpful, but as school leaders and the police department continue to have discussions to work out a potential agreement, they're glad their program is helping students, and keeping schools safer. 

Asked if she would ever be open to reinstating Commerce City school resource officers in her district, Dr. Loría said, "I will have everybody that I can get from the community in schools as long as they want to work collaboratively to at the end of the day support students, not criminalize students, because that is not the role of a school, so, I am open to collaborating with everyone following the vision, and following a clear mission to supporting students to help students cope."