Item 12: School Resource Officers
School Resource Officers are not a great concept. On the other hand, Uvalde happened three months ago, and it’s gutting to consider leaving kids unprotected. It’s time for city council to renew their contract with SMCISD for the cops in schools.
Last year, Council asked the SRO program to conduct a survey on the efficacy of the program. Does anyone feel safer? How well is it working to have cops in schools? They specifically wanted the survey to include caregivers and students, along with teachers and admin.
It just …didn’t happen. It was about to happen, back in May, and then it got sidelined due to Uvalde. But that means there was a solid six months of thumb-twiddling before May where nothing happened. Alyssa Garza and Max Baker are both furious. “That’s a really big ball to drop,” says Alyssa coldly.
Angry Alyssa is my favorite Alyssa. In general, Alyssa is preternaturally calm and patient, diplomatically providing context and backstory that her colleagues lack. That makes her icy anger during this item all the more compelling. Angry Alyssa is deployed rarely, judiciously, and with heat-seeking laser precision. It’s a special occasion when it happens.
Here are some other choice moments:
- Jane: Wouldn’t we want the school board to address this? Did they?
Alyssa: I don’t know. But this council has a habit of playing hot potato with responsibilities, and so I do not care what the school board did.
2. Mark Gleason being mark-gleasony:
Mark: Would this leave anyone open to lawsuits if something terrible happens, if we haven’t signed this yet?
The city lawyer: No. Neither party is waiving immunity. School districts have more protection against negligence than districts. The city is responsible – whether or not there’s an agreement – to train, supervise, and control these officers.
Mark: I still think it could. I really truly do. It leaves us weaker if litigation were to arise. This sets a bad precedent! A very dangerous precedent! Someone could read this and say “they have no school resource officers!”
Alyssa: But they would be there.
Mark: It sets a bad narrative!
(Please just remember how worried Mark is about lawsuits, because we’re about to talk about the lobbying ordinance.)
3. And Alyssa, at her most eviscerating:
Jane Hughson: Do you have any amendments? Do you have any changes?
Alyssa: My hesitancy is because we didn’t engage parents. We did not consult them.
Jane: So there’s not anything in this document that you would change?
Alyssa: I would change the whole thing. So don’t be asking me that, Mayor.
Jane: I want this closed. There’s a survey in it.
Alyssa: I don’t have any changes. And I didn’t want “a survey”. I wanted the PD or the ISD to get creative and figure out some way to get perspectives given everything that went on, and it’s disappointing that they didn’t.
Jane: If that was a request, we should have put that in the contract.
Alyssa: It’s not a request. It’s common sense. That’s bad leadership. We didn’t have to hold their hand through it. Districts all over the state are doing it, and the nation. We don’t have to hold leadership’s hand for everything. Read the room!
(These snippets are pared down, because it’s so blisteringly dull to read actual transcribed dialogue. But I think I preserved the gist of it.)
At this point, Max has an amendment, but Shane Scott moves to call the question, and gets council to agree, 5-1, to end debate. (Jude Prather is abstaining.) So we didn’t hear Max’s amendment.
Should we renew the SRO contract?
The vote on renewing the SRO contract:
Yes: Jane Hughson, Shane Scott, Mark Gleason, Saul Gonzalez
No: Max & Alyssa
Alyssa Garza is primarily angry at the failure to consult parents and caregivers in designing the current contract for School Resource Officers. Max Baker is angry at twelve different things, probably all valid, but spread too thin.
Here’s my take: I’m most concerned with finding out how SROs are involved when students break rules. At one point, Alyssa asks for a breakdown of police interactions with students, by race and special needs. Chief Standridge says that we have that information in our records, but it’s not pulled out in a standalone spreadsheet.
I want to know:
– what are the races and special needs of students in incidents where the SROs are involved
– what are the severity of the offenses
– what are the severity of the consequences
Then I want that data compared to incidents where the SROs are not involved. Here, I want to ignore minor offenses and just focus on the offenses that are matched up with the ones that do involve SROs.
Matching up by severity of offense, I want to know:
– what are the races and special needs of the students in these no-SRO incidents
– what are the severity of the consequences.
(I am also worried about school shootings. All my solutions are magical, and involve hearty funding of mental health initiatives and eradication of automatic weapons.)
….
Item 21: Approving the ballot for November.
We are going to take a moment to relish Shane Scott being a colossal twat:
Shane, what on god’s green earth are you holding?!
And I quote him at 3:49, saying:
“I uh, kinda scored this, this is 3 oz of marijuana. I couldn’t put 4 in here. And this is going to be considered a low-level offense? My question is, what is considered high-level – like a pillow case? What’s the next step up, just out of curiosity?”
Here are the reasons this is idiotic:
- This exact issue was discussed last time. Shane is a day late and a dollar short.
- Council is not here to discuss decriminalizing marijuana today. This is a routine ballot approval for November. There’s no issue at hand.
- Consider his actual question:
Q: If four oz is considered low-level, then what is considered high-level?
A: Anything above four oz, you dingbat.
4. So why is he actually hauling in 3 oz of pot into a city council meeting? Two opposite reasons:
- To show off that he’s got access to the dank stuff, I guess
- To show off that he’s so against this decriminalization measure
I would bet you four ounces of marijuana that Shane likes his weed, and that he still listens to Cypress Hill when he lights up. And I think he should be legally allowed to do so.
But as a city council stunt? Equal parts weird and inconsequential. Whatever, dillweed. (He approved the ballot, along with everyone else.)