A Primer on the SRO Program
The Beginnings
The School Resource Officer (SRO) program was created in 1979 in partnership with the Edmonton Police Service, Edmonton Public School Board, and the Edmonton Catholic School Board. It began with four officers stationed in High Schools. The program later expanded to include Junior High Schools
As of May 2020, there were 26 SROs in High Schools and Junior High Schools. The program has been highly praised with superintendents and school board trustees expressing a desire to eventually deploy police in elementary schools.
The Edmonton Public School Board suspended their program in September 2020 and are currently conducting a review of the program. The Catholic School Board maintains their police presence and considers the program “community policing in its purest form.”
Community Policing - Active Policing
School Resource Officers programs across North America are often referred to as “community policing.’ This definition is intended to differentiate from traditional views of policing where officers are primarily focused on enforcing the law. Wilfred Laurier University defines community policing as:
“A shift from traditional policing and focused on building trust and long term relationships in the community with the goal of reducing crime. It moves from a punitive focus to one based on prevention through mutual respect.”
Instead, our data has shown that our schools have become police precincts. Our schools have become places where students are investigated, surveilled, and charged by sworn police officers.
Not only is this unacceptable but it directly contradicts the way the program has been presented to the public. The goal of this primer is to give you a basic overview of the program and to help counter the myths surrounding School Resource Officers in Edmonton.
Funding Model
SROs are not free. School Boards pay approximately 50% of an SROs salary during the school year. For the Edmonton Public School Board Program, this comes to about one million dollars per year.
It is unclear what the Catholic School Board pays officers but a 5 year constable in the Edmonton Police Service makes $106,000. This is a high salary and shows that the funds used by SROs could be directed towards other community options such as hiring cultural supports or non-judicial diversionary programs.
Mission Creep
Mission Creep is defined by Merriam Webster as the “gradual broadening of the original objectives of a mission or organization.” Our research has shown that the School Resource Officer Program suffers from severe mission creep due to the lack of overview.
For example, in 2013 the School Resource Officers made it a goal to issue six of their officers with C-8 Carbine Rifles. We know from reporting by Is This For Real that some officers installed lockers for their carbine rifles inside schools.
This carbine example showcases how School Resource Officers are left to interpret the boundaries of their work. We will highlight an example of this overstepping in our analysis of the “Bait Phone” program.
Lack of Review
Since the program's inception in 1979, there has been no public review of police officers in our schools. However, there are on-going reviews being conducted by both school boards. These reviewers were launched in response to the upsurge of support for Black Lives Matter in the spring of 2020. It is unclear when these reviews will become public, what methodological frameworks will be used to collect and analyze data, and if they will incorporate the type of data we uncovered.
Regardless, the lack of overview of the School Resource Officer Program and the unconditional trust given to the Edmonton Police Service is a scandal. For decades, students were being placed in the school to prison pipeline. Yet, no trustee or administrator chose to investigate this program.
We - the creators of this project - have spent years trying to understand the impact of SROs. Yet, we have consistently been told by officials that there is not “enough evidence” to end the program. Myself (Bashir) requested data on the program in 2018 in a presentation to the Edmonton Public School Board and in meetings with individual school board trustees.
My persistent calls for the data were ignored. It is frustrating that nothing was initiated when these issues were first brought to the attention of the school board.
It is unclear why the true nature of the program has remained secretive and why the data we uncovered wasn’t already made publicly available. Regardless, the data we now have shows clear criminalization happening in our schools.
Conclusion
In sum, there are no more excuses for delays. We have provided the data. Trustees now have the information they need in order to end the School Resource Officer program.
