Richland 2 to increase school resource officers as schools struggle with student behavior

Richland 2 will now have a school resource officer on every campus, the district announced Wednesday.

The move is the product of a $934,040 grant approved by the state legislature and comes amid a wave of concerns throughout the country about student behavior following COVID-19.

The grant places resource officers at 10 elementary schools: Windsor, Polo Road, Forest Lake, Sandlapper, Bookman Road, Rice Creek, North Springs, Round Top, Bethel-Hanberry and Lake Carolina Lower/Upper, according to a news release from Richland 2. The officers started March 1.

Previously, all middle and high schools already had school resource officers, but some nearby elementary schools had shared school resource officers.

“It’s always been my feeling that every school needs an SRO,” Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said at a Wednesday press conference.

Richland 2 Superintendent Baron Davis agreed with the need for school resource officers on campus. Davis said the district is trying to balance having a safe school without having an overbearing law enforcement presence.

“We can’t let our guard down,” Davis said about school safety. “We also want them (students) to feel welcome or loved.”

“We don’t want to create a police state,” Davis said.

Especially at the elementary level, school resource officers are tasked less with breaking up student fights and more with protecting the school from outside threats or being a “resource” for educators.

“They’re called school resource officers, not guards,” Lott said.

The new SROs were announced during a news conference in which officials also discussed school safety, following a presentation at last weeks’ schools board meeting about disciplinary issues at school.

Schools throughout the state and country have seen increased instances of fighting and the presence of weapons this school year, which experts say is largely driven by ailing student mental health.

In the first 18 weeks of the 2021-2022 school year, more Richland 2 students were disciplined for the most serious type of alleged incidents, but the number of total disciplinary instances is down from the same time in recent years, according to data presented at the last week’s school board meeting.

In the first 18 weeks of the 2021-2022 school year, the district recorded 287 “level 3 infractions,” compared to 265 in the 2019-2020 school year and 164 in the 2018-2019 school year. There were 17 level 3 infractions in the first 18 weeks of the 2020-2021 school year, during which students spent little time physically in schools because of the pandemic.

Level 3 infractions include criminal violations such as weapons violations, aggravated assaults, sexual violations and expulsions, Cleveland Smith, Richland 2’s chief pupil services officer, said at last week’s school board meeting.

Overall infractions are down this school year. In the first 18 weeks of the 2021-2022 school year, 12,627 infractions were recorded compared to 17,499 in the same time frame of the 2019-2020 school year and 16,416 in the 2018-2019 school year, according to board documents.

The number of fights, however, has been up in recent years. In the first 18 weeks of the 2021-2022 school year, the district recorded 343 fights, compared to 255 in the same time frame of the 2019-2020 school year and 276 in the same time frame of the 2018-2019 school year, according to board documents.

The district has seen four instances of an firearm on campus this school year, Smith said. It is unclear how many times a fake, but realistic-looking gun, such as an airsoft or BB gun was found on campus, Smith said.

Richland 2, like many school systems throughout the country, has been overhauling how it approaches student punishment in recent years, following research that shows a disproportionate effect on students of color and increasing evidence that traditional school punishment policies are not effective.

During last week’s school board meeting, Davis said the district had been trying to suspend and expel fewer students for fighting because doing so causes causes “disproportionate” harm to students of color. Rather, the district is focusing more on a “restorative” model that emphasizes fixing harm rather than handing out punishments, Davis said.

“The goal is to restore that student by having them making amends” for those hurt by their actions, Davis said at the press conference.

Instead of traditional punishments, Richland 2 has sought to overhaul its response to behavioral issues by training administrators in trauma-informed care, teaching students decision-making skills, conducting a survey on student emotional well-being, setting up focus groups on how better to respond to disciplinary issues and a “restorative” approach to infractions that focuses more on solving the root cause of a dispute than for punishing rule-breaking, said Abby Cobb, a Richland 2 social worker.

However, those approaches only work if students show up to school, which places an emphasis on getting kids into the classroom, Cobb said.

“If our kids aren’t in school we can’t do all those wonderful things,” Cobb said.