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Date: 6/15/2021
EASTHAMPTON – During a School Committee meeting on June 8, Mayor Nicole LaChapelle announced that the city of Easthampton would not fund the school resource officer (SRO) position in the future.
Instead, the city is moving toward the idea of community policing in schools, as part of LaChapelle’s initiative to re-imagine the police in Easthampton.
“We’re not funding an SRO position; we’re not laying anybody off; we’re not giving back grant money,” said LaChapelle, during the meeting. “We are going to a community policing model.”
Easthampton Superintendent Allison LeClair and the Easthampton Police Department (EPD) plan to draft working protocols since the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) they have now is outdated and has not been agreed upon since 2019. They plan to work on it over the summer, and officially have these protocols ready for the next school year.
“The memorandum would clarify whatever the connections are as determined by the superintendent and police, but will not relate to building-assigned or building-based police officers serving and filling the SRO job description,” said LaChapelle, with regard to the forthcoming protocols.
The new MOU would instead clarify school and police relations rather than developing a more standardized MOU with an SRO job description. The district’s most recent SRO was Rick Rogalski.
“Policing needs to get back to policing – what they’re trained for,” LaChapelle told Reminder Publishing. “That training needs to evolve to society’s expectations.”
The transition to community policing made a lot of sense for those reasons, according to LaChapelle, especially since harm prevention is already practiced in the schools.
“When they’re out in the community, the police have much more training ability outside of school to help and remind the youth,” she said.
The mayor went on to add that a transition to community policing would realign dollars, both city and grant, for public health efforts coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic. For school purposes, LaChapelle said that she sees police as community helpers at community events, as well as helping with the city’s Healthy Youth Coalition with outreach.
“Let’s work together across department definitions, so when something goes wrong, it’s not the first time those departments have been working together,” said LaChapelle.
Back in early 2020, the school district received a federal grant to add a second SRO. After the murder of George Floyd, the district decided to take a step back and reconsider policing in schools. By not having a structured SRO anymore, LaChapelle said that the grant money will still go toward the same person and position, just not under the SRO job description.
“The placement of that officer in the community focuses on youth outreach, connection and programming is well within the capacity of that grant,” said LaChapelle.
In August of 2020, the School Committee voted to move forward with the process of removing school resource officers from the school district. Following that however, Reminder Publishing reported in September 2020 that the School Committee had taken a step back on their vote due to some confusion.
LaChapelle said that the current MOU is not pertinent since the school technically does not have an SRO. The most recent MOU, which was agreed upon between the school district and the police department in 2019, clarifies “the partnership between the district and the police department to implement a School Resource Officer program in order to promote school safety.”
The MOU also states that the agreement must be reviewed annually at the start of the school year. This did not occur before the 2020 school year.
“When there is an SRO in the school, there must be an MOU that clearly defines expectations of that SRO in the school building, and also what the SRO can expect from school staff,” said LaChapelle. “We won’t have an MOU that talks about SROs.”
During the June 8 meeting, LeClair specified that the current MOU will take them into the end of the 2020-21 school year. She said that the one they plan on drafting this summer will have to be updated based on new state legislation that will come out some time next year.
In response to these discussions, a petition has gone around on social media asking people to support the district SRO position. The petition seeks to have a specialized police officer assigned to the Easthampton Public School system. As of press time, 517 people have signed the petition.
Police Chief Robert Alberti could not be reached for comment as of press time.