Kyrene approves $498K contract for 3 school resource officers
Arianna Grainey
Kyrene School District has approved its agreement with the city of Phoenix for three school resource officers to provide safety services throughout the 2023-34 school year.
Kyrene School District will have three new school resource officers for the 2023-24 school year from the city of Phoenix to support overall safety and security at Akimel A-al, Altadena and Centennial middle schools.
A $498,084 agreement between the district and city of Phoenix was approved by the Kyrene governing board on July 18.
Following a school safety presentation and discussion mainly on the district’s use of SROs, the governing board voted to approve the agreement with a 4-1 vote. Board Member Wanda Kolomyjec, who dissented, voiced concerns for marginalized students potentially feeling unsafe with and the unreliability of data supporting the district’s stance on SROs.
The prior school safety presentation highlighted the state Department of Education’s Arizona School Safety Program Grant, which funds six SROs at Kyrene middle schools.
Because of the schools' locations, Kyrene sources one SRO from the city of Tempe and two from the city of Chandler. Tempe's agreement with the district has already been approved and Chandler's should be approved in the coming weeks.
District staff — Associate Superintendent Carrie Furedy, Director of Community Education Josh Glider and Executive Director of Academic Equity and Excellence Sandra Laine — led the presentation, covering the duties of counselors and SROs, student and educator perceptions of SROs and expenses for the SRO program.
Aside from their duties in increasing school safety, Kyrene’s SROs are required to provide law-related education based on each school’s specific needs to students, staff and community members as part of the grant’s requirements.
“They determine what the needs are on campus and that can be very, very specific to those needs in one grade and one period and whatever that is, and they will provide education to those students to support the goals in a campus,” Glider said.
Moving forward, Kyrene wants to develop a consistent district-wide curriculum plan for each grade to cover general topics like legal consequences, civil rights and illegal drug use to be taught alongside the site-specific law related education.
As for overall perception, Kyrene’s middle school principals feel that SROs bring strategic visibility to campus, build relationships with students and provides additional support in student discipline following action taken by school administrators and behavior specialists.
In cases where students are being reprimanded, SROs are not the first response but can act as a supplementary tool to drive a point home further with a student.
“Just really having an SRO reteach and review what the choices are and what the implications are and possibilities are in regards to those choices as you move forward in life… that’s just a piece that is really important and has been used by a number of families,” Furedy said.
SRO intervention in these situations is not done without receiving parental permission, Furedy noted.
Courtesy Kyrene School District
Courtesy Kyrene School District
Kyrene's 2022 school quality survey asked students, staff and district families about their experiences with the district's SROs and their overall satisfaction with their work.
When it comes to student perceptions and satisfaction with the SROs on campus, interviews with 32 students from the end of spring 2022 showed 27 of the students said they felt safer at school knowing there was an officer on campus. Students also reported SROs cared about making them feel comfortable on campus, whether that be sitting alone at lunch or during a significant behavioral incident.
Staff also featured SRO data from the spring 2022 school quality survey of more than 3,000 students, 200 staff and 500 district families.
Across racial and ethnic groups, the overall percent of students who reported most or all negative interactions with SROs was 4% with no group reporting more than 7%.
“In total, this was fewer than 50 students in the sample of approximately 1,500 students who responded that way to this question,” Furedy said.
Notably, she said Hispanic students reported slightly fewer positive interactions than other ethnic groups, but those students also had the most reports of not having any interactions with SROs at 41%.
Concerns for police presence
In the board’s discussion, Kolomyjec raised concerns with the efficacy of the survey data presented as some of the language used could have potentially confused students leading to skewed results. She also questioned whether data was being collected to see whether SROs have contributed to school safety by decreasing incidents of fighting, illegal drug use and more.
Superintendent Laura Toenjes said the SROs' main purpose is not to intervene in those situations but to provide support and relevant education when incidents like that occur.
“The reality is this, if an incident happens on a campus that requires an officer, an officer’s coming whether we have an SRO or not,” Toenjes said.
But in those cases, the SRO on campus who has established relationships with students can assist in de-escalating difficult or volatile situations rather than the student having to solely deal with an unfamiliar officer. Additionally, Toenjes said given Kyrene being a K-8 district, incidents requiring an officer are less prevalent.
Kolomyjec said she has reservations about whether SROs will continue to provide the same level of service and comfort on campus year to year. She added independent data that showed armed police do not prevent unrelated incidents and SROs can intensify the use of suspension, expulsion and police referral to students.
“This is not a personal thing to me, this is more understanding the role that the police play in our country and how that is felt in so many of the communities that we serve,” Kolomyjec said.
With the current state of schools and student well being, she was unsure whether SRO presence would benefit them.
Reporter Caroline Yu can be reached at cyu@iniusa.org. To voice your opinion on this story, connect with us at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.
Meet Caroline Caroline Yu joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2020 as a summer intern covering Scottsdale. As an intern, she continued her coverage of Scottsdale, Paradise Valley and Tempe. After graduating in 2022, Caroline became a full-time reporter for Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. She is currently reporting for the Tempe market.
Community: She is a supporter of the environment and tries to get involved with related community events.
Education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communications, with a minor in French.
Random Fact: She used to be a ballet dancer for 10 years.
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“The reality is this, if an incident happens on a campus that requires an officer, an officer’s coming whether we have an SRO or not,” Toenjes said.
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