Tag: SRO

Hour 3:00 – 3:50, 8/16/22

by The San Marxist, posted in Hour summaries

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:

  1. 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:

  1. This exact issue was discussed last time. Shane is a day late and a dollar short.
  1. Council is not here to discuss decriminalizing marijuana today. This is a routine ballot approval for November. There’s no issue at hand. 
  1. 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.)

September 7th City Council Meeting (Part 2)

by The San Marxist, posted in Meetings

The other two most-important items are Items 14 and 34.

Item 14: Interlocal Agreement with SMCISD on School Resource Officers

Commissioner Baker has a list of concerns about SROs.

  • They are reassigned to different schools for failure to do their job, instead of being removed as SROs all together
  • While training is required to be an SRO, officers get placed on campuses that are not trained as SROs
  • There is language about how SROs will “promote the concept of punishment for criminal acts”. How is this useful in our schools? Some people extend this concept to undocumented community members. This is destructive.
  • “Increase students’ knowledge and respect of the law” – what about when officers aren’t due that respect?
  • May we identify the funding sources of this study?
  • Why are we putting protection of property above protection of students?
  • Why aren’t we surveying students to see how the officers are doing and if they feel safer?
  • We put a pro-SRO video on YouTube featuring an officer whose actions have raised concerns.

Commissioner Derrick weighs in with points about SROs needing mental health training. She’s had particularly negative eperienc

Broadly, I agree with all of Baker’s points. However: Chief Dandridge is consistently great when he talks to City Council. I don’t know what he’s like on the job, and I know that there are community members who are frustrated with our police. All I am saying is that Dandridge’s performance at council meetings is very good. So far, this is what I’ve seen:

  • He generally does not respond adversarily to aggressive questions from Baker.
  • He often agrees partially or completely.
  • He backs up his statements with information and data,
  • He admits when he doesn’t know something, and offers to find the information.
  • He does not offer pat solutions and does not reduce the complexity of issues.

Again, maybe he’s a jerk on the force! I don’t know! But he’s good at council meetings.

Chief Dandridge responds to all of these points, one by one. On the questions about statistics and data, he pledges to write a memorandum compiling his data and that he will send it out to council. He lists the classes that the SROs are trained in. It includes restorative justice, mental health, developmental psychology, suicide prevention, and many more. He doesn’t try to dispute Baker’s points per se, but provides context for how these things play out in San Marcos. And he’s supportive of ideas like surveying students.

In the end, they vote to postpone and have work session. So nothing is resolved here, but I’m glad to see these issues discussed.

Item 34: Greater San Marcos Partnership, GSMP

GSMP is a pro-business organization that works across the entire county to bring business in and support existing businesses. San Marcos kicks in $400k/year. Several issues are raised:

Does GSMP make life better for San Marcos residents? Commissioner Baker wants GSMP to conduct a survey to quantify the impact of GSMP on San Marcos residents.

Mayor Hughson seems rather obtuse on this one, repeating several times that San Marcos already conducts a detailed quality of life survey and there is no need for GSMP to duplicate this. The difference is that the city survey is attempting to ascertain the benefits brought by the city, and the GSMP survey would attempt to measure benefits brought by GSMP. One does not substitute for the other.

Amendment for a mandatory survey passes, 4-3.
In favor: Derrick, Gonzalez, Garza, and Baker
Opposed: Hughson, Scott, Gleason

Next issue up is the Environmental Social Grievance reports, or ESG. These are third party reports compiled on the externalities that a business imposes on the community. City Council has asked for information from GSMP on wages, environmental impact, and other externalities. GSMP says that for $10K, they’ll buy an ESG from a third party company.

Baker would like to read one before agreeing that this suffices. But there isn’t one to read, because they cost money and they’re proprietary. It’s a very frustrating business-y solution. “We’ve contracted out with a niche business, and obviously they aren’t motivated by the public good. What’s the problem?” It’s not exactly corrupt, but it’s annoying and full of middlemen.

Baker moves to postpone until they can see a sample ESG report and see if it is satisfactory, but the motion fails.

In favor: Derrick, Garza, Baker
Opposed: Hughson, Scott, Gleason, Gonzalez

Councilmember Derrick makes an amendment to add mental health providers as a targeted industry. This passes 6-1, with Scott voting no, like a dillweed.

A representative speaks up about how intractable the problem of attracting mental health providers is. He promises that they’ll target, but not that they’ll be successful.

This last part is the BEST. Now, Councilmember Baker has been furious since he was at the GSMP Summit last spring, and nobody was wearing masks. Baker makes an amendment to the agreement that the GSMP will have to follow CDC guidelines on safety.

This passes 5-2:
For: Mayor Hughson, Derrick, Garza, Gonzalez, and Baker
Opposed: Just Gleason and Scott.

The whole discussion takes FOREVER, but the poetic justice of Max getting to force GSMP to wear masks is so sweet and worth every last bit.

(Finally, the actual agreement with GSMP passes unanimously.)