Dear Families and Students,
Denver Public Schools (DPS) will be hosting several conversations about School Resource Officers being transitioned out of schools by the end of this school year. We want to move forward in this transition together with the community and invite you to share with us your hopes and concerns with this transition at our upcoming meeting. Your input will help us better prepare our schools and community for the transition and to work toward eliminating the school-to-prison pipeline.
Join us from 6:00pm – 7:00pm on Wednesday, April 7th for a conversation hosted in Spanish and interpreted into English.
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This meeting will provide space for you to hear which schools will see this transition and for team members from the school district to hear your questions, hopes, and concerns directly. Your input is important to us and will be used in our work to continue building safe and healthy schools.
As you might know, the Denver Public Schools Board of Education approved a resolution in the summer of 2020 to remove all School Resource Officers from DPS schools, part of an effort to end the school to prison pipeline. School Resource Officers are employees of the Denver Police Department who worked inside some DPS schools. The vast majority of our schools have never had School Resource Officers and we have many examples of how to provide safe schools without having Denver Police inside the building. For some context, less than 20 School Resource Officers were in our 220 schools.
In addition to removing School Resource Officers, we know there is ongoing work needed to end the school-to-prison pipeline. These efforts include decreasing the number of criminal citations to our students, reducing referrals to law enforcement for our students, and continuing to create safe schools through positive safety and discipline measures. We are also focused on making sure that, in those times when we do need police support on our campuses, law enforcement officers are working with our schools and students in an anti-racist and culturally-responsive way.
We will host more meetings in April/May to share a draft transition plan and get your feedback and input for final changes to this transition. To ensure the transition of School Resource Officers out of schools is working, we will continue to engage with families, students, and school leaders into next school year.
For questions and to learn more, visit: dpsk12.org/sro-transition/
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