Marin supervisors accept grant for schools cop

The funding will allow the county to provide a second "school resource officer" to cover 35 schools in unincorporated areas.

After passing up a $626,000 state grant to fund a school police officer for three years in 2020, Marin County supervisors have reversed field.

The supervisors accepted a $247,000 grant from the California Department of Justice on Tuesday that will cover the salary of an additional officer for 35 schools in the unincorporated area for one year. The schools have a single officer.

In 2019, the Marin County Civil Grand Jury recommended that the county should expand its use of the officers.

“School resource officers (SROs) are law enforcement officers who serve as counselors, role models, and advocates for students while keeping them safe,” the watchdog panel said in a report. “Although SROs are sworn law enforcement officers, they do not enforce school policies or maintain discipline.”

But when supervisors conducted budget hearings in June 2020, they were flooded with calls for them to cut Marin County Sheriff’s Office funding and remove SROs from schools.

The supervisors reacted by reducing funding to the sheriff’s office by $1.7 million and delaying acceptance of the SRO grant. The supervisors never revisited the issue of the grant, so the money went unclaimed.

On Tuesday, four supervisors gave their full-throated support for the program. Supervisor Damon Connolly, who is running for state Assembly, expressed reservations and suggested delaying the decision.

“What is the time factor in making the decision?” he asked Mary Jane Burke, Marin County superintendent of schools.

“I think it is mission critical,” Burke said. “We’ve already set this aside for a period of time. We want this in place by July 1.”

After the other four supervisors announced they supported accepting the grant, Connolly said he would vote with the majority. But he added, “My questions remain and I’m going to be evaluating this going forward.”

As she did in 2020, Burke urged the supervisors to accept the grant, which comes from a tax on tobacco that was implemented by Proposition 56 in 2016.

“The SROs are the go-to people that we call when we have particular issues,” Burke said. “The difference they make can be life and death.”

Eleven Marin county school superintendents and principals submitted letters of support urging the supervisors to accept the grant.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Laura Myers, interim principal of Mill Valley Middle School, said, “My political views tend to lean pretty left; traditionally what the ACLU says I agree with. I disagree with them about SROs and the presence of police at schools.”

Myers said the SROs “helped our kids make better choices.”

“I’ve seen the cops come to school and help kids when their parents wouldn’t transport them to the hospital,” she said.

Adam Jennings, superintendent of the Shoreline Unified School District, said, “Increasing the opportunity for our students to work directly with an SRO will not only support the development of positive relationships between law enforcement and young people in the riskiest stage of their lives, it will also make our campuses safer.”

Other commenters were equally passionate in their opposition.

“It is well-established that the presence of police on school campuses causes danger, trauma and disproportionate criminalization of students of color,” said Tammy Edmonson, a member of Mill Valley Force for Racial Equity and Empowerment.

Stephen Bingham, a retired staff attorney for Bay Area Legal Aid, questioned the legality of the funding source.

“Prop. 56 does not allow that,” Bingham said.

In a letter to supervisors, Tara Evans-Boyce of Stinson Beach asserted that a report issued by the state auditor in 2021 makes this clear.

Burke said she had confirmed with the state “as recently as 72 hours ago” that using of the grant to hire an SRO is allowed.

Ken Lippi, deputy superintendent of the Marin County Office of Education, said in the past a SRO played a key role in organizing an effort to educate Marin school kids about the dangers of vaping and tobacco use. He said the road show, which enlisted students in the presentations, engaged 4,000 Marin residents.

“We want to get back to that and expand it because the problem is worse than ever,” Lippi said. “We need additional support to do that and that is totally within the scope of the grant that is funding this position.”

Connolly asked about a report issued in July 2021 by the county’s Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Commission. It examined 387 interactions between students and SROs working with Marin schools outside the county system from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

According to the commission, 126 of the 387 incidents were for mental health crises. The commission also found a disproportionate number of students of color were cited or arrested.

For example, the commission reported that while students of color make up roughly 50% of the student population at Novato High School, these students accounted for 72% of the arrests and citations at that school. Similar variances were seen at Davidson Middle School and Terra Linda High School.

The report said 98% of the 387 interactions resulted from a request for assistance from an administrator, teacher or student.

“Do you agree with the equity concerns raised in the report?” Connolly asked Burke and Marin County Undersheriff Jamie Scardina.

Scardina pointed out that the report lacked any analysis of interactions between students and the SRO supplied by the sheriff’s office. Until 2020, local police departments provided SROs to schools in San Rafael, Novato, Mill Valley, Larkspur, Corte Madera and San Anselmo. San Rafael City Schools stopped in 2020.

On Friday, Marin District Attorney Lori Frugoli said 32 of the 387 interactions involved the SRO supplied by the sheriff’s office. Fourteen of these involved fights, four of which resulted in felony charges. Thirteen of the students involved in the interactions were White, nine were African American and nine were Latino.

Scardina said the SRO supplied by the sheriff’s office made no arrests and issued no citations during fiscal 2021-22. He also said the interactions between the county SRO and students dropped to a little over 250 in 2021-22 from more than 400 annually in prior years.

Scardina said the reduction in interactions was likely due to schools finding other methods of dealing with students suffering mental health crises. In 2020, the county expanded the hours of its mobile crisis unit to provide weekly morning coverage.

Lippi said, “That has been a tremendous asset.”