As D.C. draws down its school resource officer program, the mayor is meeting with school leaders to strategize.
Student safety is top of mind after a number of teens have been shot since the new year, including the effort to protect kids from any violence in the schools.
Mayor Muriel Bowser said school leaders are having to transition to new resources to get a handle on the ever-changing safety environment within their schools.
“The SROs were their main point of giving and getting information around safety, and they felt confident in the SROs’ ability to scan the environment that was affecting their kids. Absent that, they’re having to figure it out on their own,” Bowser said, summarizing the feelings expressed by principals and assistant principals at the meeting.
Middle and high school leaders met with Bowser and her cabinet at Dunbar High School in the Truxton Circle neighborhood to discuss how to otherwise support student safety, with a focus on increased communication, so schools know whom they can call if help is needed.
By District law, the school resource officer program is ending in 2025.
“There are currently about 60 SROs. At their height, there were about 113 SROs at 52 schools we considered highest priority 鈥� Principals have already felt the impact cutting it roughly in half,” City Administrator Kevin Donahue said.
Two of the programs discussed at the meeting were and the DC School Connect program.
The first is “an evidence-based program where we grant funds to community-based organizations to hire trained, skilled community members to basically be on the streets for drop-off and dismissal time for students,” said Paul Kihn, the deputy mayor for education.
That program has more than 160 participants helping kids feel safe during transit times, Kihn said.
DC School Connect is a transportation program run in the two highest priority neighborhoods that help 300 students, identified by their schools, to get to and from school safely without using public transportation. Buses do loops to pick up these kids who school leaders have said would otherwise be unsafe traveling to and from school on Metro.
