LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio plans to bring for board approval his recommendation to create an internal security team at Kentucky’s largest public school district “in the near future,” he said in an interview Monday.
The Jefferson County Board of Education had been crafting policies governing an internal team of school security officers before the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent transition to remote learning sidelined those talks.
Pollio, who declined to share specifics of his proposal, said the debate surrounding school resource officers at JCPS has been “probably the most difficult issue to navigate of the many I’ve had to navigate over the past four or five years.
“It brings out more emotion and disagreement than any issue that we've had, so I think it's important that we listen to both sides,” Pollio said. “We understand we want to increase safety while also making sure we meet the needs of our kids, provide support to our kids. So many of our kids are hurting and struggling in many ways right now.”
JCPS has been without school resource officers since Louisville Metro pulled 17 officers from district schools because of budgetary concerns and after a split board did not approve contracts with other local law enforcement agencies for another 11 officers ahead of the 2019-20 school year.
The lack of sworn law enforcement officers in JCPS schools comes as Louisville is dealing with a record-setting year for homicides.
JCPS reported a 40% drop in the number of fights inside schools during the first 71 days of the 2021-22 school year compared to the 2019-20 term, the most recent year in which students took in-person classes on normal schedules. While the number of students caught with guns on school property was down by nearly half in the first 39 days compared to 2019-20, JCPS issued 27% more behavior referrals for weapons violations this year than 2019-20 in the same timeframe, according to data obtained by WDRB News in an open records request.
“The dramatic decrease shows that we are making an impact in our work and what we're trying to do, but we’ve still got a long way to go,” Pollio said.
Schools, Pollio said, are “always going to be a reflection of the community” and tasked with dealing with such issues.
“When you have an elementary child bringing a gun to school, a 10-year-old bringing a gun to school, we have to look at issues in a very deep way if we're going to fix this,” he said. “How is a child, a 10-year-old getting a handgun and bringing it to school? How are middle schoolers doing it? How do they have access to this, and why do they have access to this in our community?”
In the aftermath of a fatal drive-by shooting that killed 16-year-old Eastern High School student Tyree Smith in September, LMPD Chief Erika Shields has repeatedly called on the school board to create an internal team of school security officers for JCPS.
Shields has referred to security measures at JCPS as “inadequate” and said LMPD lacks information from schools about issues that may later emerge in the community. Pollio said he believed providing intelligence to law enforcement should not be “our number one job” and that JCPS wanted to continue working closely with LMPD.
“We have to make our community safer. When our communities become safer, our schools become safer,” he said. “... Clearly we've got to work together on this and not in opposition.”
Armed school security officers are required at schools across the state as qualified personnel and funding become available under a recently enacted law, and a proposal filed ahead of the 2022 legislative session calls for schools to have resource officers without such caveats.
More than 700 schools across Kentucky lacked school resource officers, according to the 2020-21 annual report from State School Security Marshal Ben Wilcox’s office.
Staffing for an internal security force is “a significant concern” for Pollio as JCPS grapples with personnel shortages throughout the 155-school district, he said.
“We already know that LMPD and other police agencies around the state and the country are facing the same issue, which is severe staffing shortage,” he said.
Pollio said the district is exploring other security measures to bring to the school board for approval.
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