photo by: Meeting screenshot/Lawrence school board

Lawrence school board President Kelly Jones, right, speaks about the district's school resource officer program during a meeting on Monday, May 24, 2021.

Although Lawrence school district data shows most students have positive interactions with police in schools, Board President Kelly Jones on Monday said the district needs to consider taking more steps to improve the program.

After hearing a report on the district’s use of school resource officers, Jones said she believes the district needs to make sure when students who interacting with an officer, specifically during a criminal investigation, a district official is with them to provide support. She said she believed that should be a mental health professional who would serve as an advocate for the student until a parent or guardian can arrive.

“I do think if we continue to have SROs, there is value to have someone in the room … who has a mental health background and who has an understanding of the implications for that student if they are not cooperating,” Jones said.

Jones’ comments came after district administrators shared the results of a recent ThoughtExchange survey about the district’s use of school resource officers, or SROs. ThoughtExchange is a software platform that the district uses to solicit feedback from community members. According to a report provided in the meeting agenda, 1,064 students and 133 faculty and staff members responded to the survey.

The survey showed that 77% of respondents said they’d had positive interactions with SROs in the past. About 8% said they’d had negative interactions, and 15% said they’d had neither positive nor negative interactions. In addition, 50% of respondents said they felt safer with SROs in schools and 11% said they did not. About 39% said they didn’t feel strongly one way or the other.

The district provided the data as further research on the matter, which has been a hot topic in recent years. District leaders have discussed the role of SROs in the past, and some board members — including Jones — have wondered whether having police officers in schools has negative effects on marginalized groups such as students of color. The school district currently uses four SROs, who split their time among Lawrence’s two high schools and four middle schools.

Jones said the data shown on Monday is “strong” and shows people feel safe in the district’s schools with police officers. But she noted the program it is not perfect.

Jones said no matter how compassionate and SRO may be, they are not a mental health professional. She said the district and its SROs should have a stronger collaboration with mental health professionals responding to those instances and that it should be outlined in a memorandum of understanding, or MOU.

In other business, the board approved a new governance manual with a 5-2 vote. Board members Carole Cadue-Blackwood and Melissa Johnson voted against the measure.

The manual provides guidelines for how the board operates, including the procedure for appointing leadership positions on the board. The approved manual lays out guidelines for when board members can serve in the president and vice president positions and includes a two-consecutive-term limit for those positions.

Traditionally, the president and vice president positions were given to the top vote-getters in the most recent election through a formal vote on the board. But the manual now gives the board the opportunity to appoint the leaders, regardless of how many votes they received in their election, through the board’s vote. Jones said part of the reason the change was considered was to allow a board member to serve more than one year as president and have more experience in leading the board.

Cadue-Blackwood previously said she did not support the manual because of that change, saying she “didn’t want to take the power of the vote from the people.”

After deferring action during its May 10 meeting, the board approved updated language to take those concerns into account. While the manual does not mandate the board to appoint a board president who had received the most votes in their election, it does suggest the board take that into consideration when selecting its leadership.