The state of school resource officers in Minnesota
COON RAPIDS, Minn. -- Safety and security of our children at school: It's part of a broader CBS News investigation on police officers in our schools.
WCCO's Jonah Kaplan digs into the data for Minnesota, and how our own recent history has led to some drastic changes.
The bowtie is a nice touch, even if it doesn't totally distract from his badge and gun. Detective Geoff Neumann is the student resource officer at Coon Rapids High School.
"I don't try to take attention away from the badge. The badge is who we are at school," he said.
Neumann is one of 12 SROs working across the Anoka-Hennepin County School District.
"I'm not a social worker, I'm not a principal, I'm not a teacher, but do I dip my toes in all of those pools sometimes when a student comes to me with some sort of question or issue? Absolutely," he said.
One recent issue happened at the fall homecoming: Neumann earlier that day heard chatter of teenagers from another community coming to settle a score with someone in Coon Rapids. With staff on heightened alert, they were able to act quickly when someone tipped them that teenagers were at the game with guns in their car.
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"There were two extended mag pistols sitting on the floorboard," Neumann said. "While that alone is obviously of concern, the car was also unlocked."
Neumann says his goal is to forge relationships and get people comfortable with interacting and talking with police.
"And I think that's happened a lot," he said.
Police officers in schools aren't new. Minneapolis Public Schools had them as far back as 1967. But that relationship abruptly ended after the murder of George Floyd.
That decision underscored two important realities in Minnesota: There is no law on the books requiring school districts to hire SROs and because of that, there's no uniformity in who or what the role should even look like.
In 2010, Minneapolis Public Schools employed as many as 20 police officers. Nowadays, there are 13 unarmed and plain-clothed specialists from the district's department of emergency management, safety and security.
"We're not going to come in and handcuff a kid and drag them out of the building. We're just not," Jason Matlock, a spokesman for Minneapolis Public Schools, said.
The evidence backs that up. In 2016, Minneapolis schools made more than 700 student discipline referrals to MPD. Last year, there were just 50.
"Think about a low-level theft or a kid breaks a window. Yes, under criminal statutes there are things for that. But, if you can work things through and find a restorative outcome," Matlock said.
The district says they still will call police for serious cases like weapons or assaults, but they're really trying to avoid what they refer to as "the school-to-prison pipeline."
In Coon Rapids, Neumann recognizes that goal too and is taking the message to the classroom.
"Being a police officer is not my identity. I'm a person outside of this. This is my job and I take a lot of pride in it," he said.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 46% of traditional public schools employ SROs. The last study done in Minnesota counted only 28% of schools, with half of those officers working in the metro.
More Resources
MN House Research: School Resource Officers