A recent survey shows that most students, parents and teachers think police officers in Regina schools are doing a good job but there is some concern about how some officers treat minorities.
The survey, prepared by Praxis Consulting Ltd., reveals what students, parents and teachers think about the School Resource Officer (SRO) program, which has been in operation for 43 years.
Fourteen SROs are assigned to Regina’s high schools and elementary schools. Each SRO operates an office within the school providing education to kids on bullying, cyber-crime, safe relationships and more.
Sarah Cummings Truszkowski, the board chair for Regina Public Schools, said the program was only recently reviewed, which hasn’t been done in 43 years.
“It was important to do this review. Data from the review report said that marginalized students, those being Black, brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ, disabled and newcomers, were more likely to feel traumatized, stereotyped, intimidated and anxious around police in their schools,” Cummings Truszkowski said. “So, that’s a concern.”
Regina Catholic School Division (RCSD) board chair Shauna Weninger said they have been very aware of the fact that it’s been four decades since the SRO program has run without a formal review.
“It was actually kind of validating of the program to hear from the marginalized groups and populations that were consulted with as well as those that had had interactions with the school resource officers,” Weninger said. “It’s definitely the area that requires attention and requires a lot of improvement.”
Weninger said one of the recommendations for the SROs was for them to be wearing plain clothes as opposed to their uniform. Weninger said the biggest focus is the Regina Police Service taking the recommendations and working at building safe relationships for everyone in the schools.
The deputy chief of operations with the Regina Police Service said she was not surprised by some of the findings in the report, including how the diverse students sometimes feel traumatized or stereotyped by SROs.
“I think that is something we would find generally in the community at large is that people who come from maybe marginalized communities or diverse communities sometimes don’t have the best historical relationship with police, and that can blend into modern-day relationships,” Lorilee Davies said.
“I think our piece of work going forward is really being proactive in trying to build and re-establish really strong, positive relationships. We see this as an opportunity to improve relationships in the school, but also in the larger community.”
Davies added that if the decision is made to take SROs out of schools, there will not be any opportunity to improve relationships in the school or the larger community.
“If we can establish those relationships early on with youth, we think that it’ll pay off down the road in terms of the larger community aspect as well,” Davies said.
The Regina Police Service will be meeting with the school division in the coming weeks to develop a plan for addressing these concerns.
Comments