A special task force wants to expand state laws that fund school resource officers to also let districts spend grant dollars on safety hardware, including artificial intelligence to spot would-be shooters.
There is a demand by some districts for sworn police officers in their buildings, Mike Kurtenbach, director of school safety for the Arizona Department of Education, said Thursday. But he said there are not enough officers available to fill that need.
The School Safety Task Force is proposing ways to deal with that, including trying to encourage retired police officers to take the jobs.
But Kurtenbach said more is needed.
“There is a desire to expand the funding to include other needs, particularly around physical safety at school,’’ he said. Those can include design features, such as doors that automatically lock in situations with an active shooter; and “ballistic film’’ that can be placed over existing glass that prevents it from shattering when shot, to slow down someone trying to shoot their way into a building or classroom.
Metal detectors could also be included, along with other technology.
“There are artificial intelligence systems out there that can detect systems before the human eye can,’’ Kurtenbach explained, saying this would provide “another tool to enhance safety.’’
“Cameras are great,’’ said Kurtenbach, a former Phoenix police officer. “But they’re only as good as somebody monitoring the cameras. If you have an algorithm, if you have technology that can sense a threat, that can identify that threat beforehand, that’s a tool that everyone would agree had tremendous value because in a critical situation, seconds matter.’’
There is $84 million in a grant fund for school safety, with Arizona lawmakers directing that the priority go to putting more officers in more schools.
But the issue isn’t just money. There is nothing in state law that allows the Arizona Department of Education to use its school safety grants to pay for such equipment.
So how much more money would be needed to deal with equipment requests, Kurtenbach responded, “That’s going to be a big number. There’s no doubt about that.’’
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne would not say how much more he intends to seek from lawmakers.
All this stems from a shortage of sworn law law enforcement officers to go around to all the schools that want one. At this point there are 138 schools that have grant funds but simply can’t find someone to hire.
The problem, said Kurtenbach, is police departments don’t have the full-time officers to spare.
“You have chiefs, you have sheriffs that are having to make very hard decisions,’’ he said. “Every chief, every sheriff recognizes that their first duty is to respond to calls for service when somebody picks up a phone. It’s not a funding issue. It’s finding the people to fill these positions.’’
The Department of Education already is working with private agencies that arrange for off-work assignments for police officers, such as on road-construction sites, to get some of them to be willing to work in schools on their days off. But Kurtenbach said that is a short-term solution.
What might work better is finding retired officers who, with some additional training, could be designated as “school safety officers.’’ But he said there are legal hurdles to be overcome.
One of them is that there are rules of the Public Safety Personnel Retirement System as well as the Internal Revenue Service that could financially penalize those who go back to work, by trimming their pensions. Kurtenbach said there may be ways around that, including amending state laws that govern police pensions.
But the issue of more police officers in schools goes beyond money.
There have been complaints in some communities across the nation of what has been called a “school to prison’’ pipeline, with schools depending heavily on police to enforce discipline, a process that can result in arrests.
“There’s a lot of talk about if you have an officer in school that’s going to further this proverbial school to prison pipeline,’’ Kurtenbach said. He disputes the premise, citing a report that says juvenile arrests overall are at a 40-year low.
“Officers are not inclined to slap cuffs on people and put them in jail,’’ he said, especially with police staffing as low as it is.
“They’re problem solvers,’’ Kurtenbach said. “They’re trying to find ways to create solutions to problems that exist.’’
He did acknowledge there’s a big difference between a police officer who has been strictly in a law-enforcement role for years and someone who would be working full time in a school and might be considered more of a counselor.
“Training is key,’’ he said.
This isn’t just an issue for retired officers who might end up in schools. The task force is recommending additional training for everyone who ends up as a school resource officer on issues ranging from federal laws governing student privacy, to civil rights, to adolescent mental health issues.
All this will require legislation. Horne said he is lining up a lawmaker to sponsor the measure.
Sheriff Chris Nanos spoke July 20 about the importance of active shooter training sessions for all schools in Pima County. His speech at Flowing Wells Junior High School in Tucson was followed by a demonstration of the training offered to educators and those working in schools when it comes to active shooter scenarios.
Video by Pascal Albright / Arizona Daily Star.
