SROS

arrested in that time period: one for third-degree assault and one for indecent exposure, according to the data.

School board member Scott Baldermann wrote the policy to reintroduce SROs. e policy includes a requirement that DPS monitor the number of times SROs ticket or arrest students to ensure marginalized students aren’t disproportionately targeted.

Before SROs were removed, Black students were targeted more often. In 2018-19, one in four tickets or arrests involved Black DPS students, even though only about one in seven students were Black, state data showed. e monitoring is meant to safeguard against racist policing.

“Now they’re being watched,” Baldermann said.

But the 2022-23 data also shows a disproportionality. White students were underrepresented in tickets and arrests, while Black students were overrepresented. A third of tickets and arrests in 2022-23 involved Black students, but only 14% of DPS students are Black.

Steve Katsaros, an East High parent who helped form a safety advocacy group after the March shooting, is supportive of SROs. But he said the bigger issue is DPS’ rules for when educators can suspend or expel students or call the police.

ose rules are spelled out in a chart known as the discipline matrix, which DPS amended in 2021 to limit calls to police.

“ e elephant in the room is that the discipline matrix says educators cannot refer to [the Denver Police Department],” Katsaros said.

Given the changes to the discipline matrix and other factors, such as the e ects of the pandemic on students’ behavior, Katsaros said it’s hard to draw conclusions by comparing data from before and after remote learning. “ e data can be twisted,” he said.

Elsa Bañuelos-Lindsay is also skeptical of the data. She is the executive director of Movimiento Poder, an advocacy organization that strongly opposed the return of SROs.

“Our worry as an organization is we will see an increase … in the criminalization of [Black, Indigenous, people of color] working-class young people,” Bañuelos-Lindsay said, and “a lot of schools relying on policing to deal with issues that should be dealt with in schools, like mental health.”

Seventeen-year-old Skye O’Toole is a student at Denver School of the Arts, which doesn’t have an SRO. At a closed-door school board meeting held the day after the East High shooting, Superintendent Alex Marrero said DSA had turned down the o er of an SRO this past spring, a re- cently released recording revealed. But that’s no guarantee DSA won’t get an SRO sometime in the future. It’s an outcome that O’Toole, who is an active member of Marrero’s student cabinet, opposes.

Even though the recent data does not show a spike in tickets and arrests after SROs were reintroduced this past spring, O’Toole said she still fears that could happen.

“We can’t jump to any conclusions based on two months of data,” O’Toole said. “ e rst few months or the rst few years, [the SROs are] likely going to be on their best behavior. ey were being brought back with a lot of caution and concern around them.

“We can start judging the data more when we’re one or two years into the process. I have a feeling that arrests will go up. I’ll be watching very closely.”

Chalkbeat is a nonpro t news site covering educational change in public schools.