VIRGINIA- In a special meeting on Tuesday, the ISD 2142 school board formalized the suspension of the school resource officer program with the St. Louis County Sheriff’s office.
Softening the language from “terminated” used to announce the move at its prior meeting, the board left the door open to renewing the partnership should a legislative remedy to the new restrictions on restraints in schools be forthcoming.
“It’s a major disappointment,” said board member Chris Koivisto. “It’s one of the best programs we’ve had in our schools.”
The St. Louis County Sheriff’s Office is one of at least a dozen law enforcement departments across the state that have pulled their SRO programs on the advice of legal counsel that their officers could be found civilly and criminally liable for using any kind of restraint in which they touched a lengthy list of body parts included in legislation passed last spring as part of a larger education spending bill. The apparent intent of the legislation was to prohibit the use of prone and compression restraints, but the language in the bill appears to open the door for the restrictions to be applied more broadly, according to the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association.
Attorney General Keith Ellison tried to diffuse the controversy with a statement issued Aug. 22 in which he said the use of “reasonable force” is still allowed by school officials and police officers to “prevent bodily harm or death,” and that the definition of reasonable force hasn’t changed and allows for the use of certain restraints.
“Safety is essential for learning, and everyone in our schools — students, teachers, staff, administrators, SROs, and families — wants to be safe and feel safe,” Ellison said. “The aims of the new amendments to our school-discipline laws are worthy. I issued this opinion upon [Education Commissioner Willie] Jett’s request because it is important to provide clarity about the amendment’s scope.”
However, that wasn’t enough for state House and Senate Republicans, who held a press conference on Aug. 30 to call on Gov. Tim Walz to call the legislature into special session to fix the bill. Republicans said the language was added to the education finance bill by the DFL over their objections and without consulting law enforcement officials. DFL representatives have said the language was proposed by the Minnesota Department of Education.
A remedy proposed by Republicans would repeal the recent law change eliminating prone restraints or physical holds and repeal the change to use of force standards to revert back to the original language that was in statute. The change does not impact the 2021 bill that banned all neck and chokehold restraints and remains in place for students and all Minnesotans.
“The safety of our kids, teachers, and schools should always come before partisan politics. Minnesotans expect us to govern responsibly. Moms and dads count on us to safeguard their children. The confusion surrounding this law is causing a growing number of School Resource Officers to be pulled out of schools across our state leaving students and staff vulnerable in cases of emergency,” said Sen. Zach Duckworth, R-Lakeville. “I’m calling on the Governor to bring Republicans and Democrats together for a special session before school starts so that we can fix this issue, keep our SROs, and ensure our kids are safe.”
While Walz didn’t meet the Republicans’ desired deadline, he indicated on Tuesday at a back-to-school event in Bloomington that he is open to calling a special session to consider a fix.
“The issue is that there’s not clarification. That’s why we’re trying to find a solution,” Walz said. “I’ve said, if we need to, there needs to be a clarification in the law. Let’s figure out how we work that together, striking that balance between students’ safety, trusted adults in the building and appropriate use of physical force, if needed.”