Rochester police officers will monitor some city school buildings this academic year. It will be the second full school year in which such a measure will be in place.
The $770,400 contract between the district and the Rochester Police Department provides for officers to be present at arrivals and dismissals for some high schools.
Interim superintendent Demario Strickland said in a school board meeting on Thursday that the measure is urgently needed to deter violence around school buildings, particularly in light of recent community violence involving youth in the city.
“I want to remind the individuals on this dais of the type of summer we've had,” Strickland said. “And we even woke up to some alerts this this morning about some of our high school age students, and I just want to really caution us, this is the last board meeting before the first day of school. We won't have any opportunities to start late and delay.”
The Rochester city school board approved the agreement in a 4-1 vote, but not without some strong, mixed feelings about it.
"I think that there's more effective ways than paying police officers who's already paid to patrol the area and be visible in our community," school board member Isaiah Santiago said. “But I believe that that it should just be more clear on exactly what is the role of our police officers while they're on campus.”
School board member Jacqueline Griffin said her vote in favor of the contract was partly influenced by recent violence and the way police have responded to it. That includes a violent incident at Edison Technology High School last week.
A spokesperson with the Rochester Police Department said last Friday that officers responded to reports of multiple fights at the high school around noon. Two people were treated for minor injuries.
“I don't usually say anything about the police being at the schools, because I don't totally agree with it,” Griffin said. “But I will have to say, and I want to applaud the police officers for the event that occurred at Edison, because it was mayhem. And if they had not been there and been there present, then it could have been a lot worse.”
Board member Amy Maloy voted against the resolution. Commissioners Camille Simmons and Beatriz LeBron were absent.
The district first approved such an agreement with Rochester police in the winter of 2023 after a student was shot at in the entranceway to Franklin high school.
That came a few years after the district removed police known as school resource officers from inside schools. Those positions had been in place since the late '90s.
Unlike SROs, the RPD presence at high schools has been limited to patrol cars stationed outside buildings during transition times.
