Harrisburg High School-John Harris campus
The Harrisburg School District has proposed employing police officers in response to a growing safety issue.
At a school board meeting on Tuesday, the district shared a plan that would bring police officers into schools to address violence incidents, which officials said have been steadily on the rise.
“There has been a rise in violence and threats just nationwide,” said Dr. Marisol Craig, assistant superintendent. “It’s not just something that we ourselves in Harrisburg School District are dealing with.”
Under the proposal, the district would hire four police officers. The district has not employed its own officers in over two decades, although for several years it partnered with the Harrisburg Police Bureau to bring in school resource officers. From 2008 to 2022, the district employed no officers, but had a coordinator of safety, and from 2022 to today, the district has had a director of safety and security, along with other safety specialists and monitors.
According to Craig, so far this school year, there have been nearly 800 student incidents, as well as 16 expulsions, double the number in all of last year. The district makes daily calls to the police department due to incidents, she said.
Craig said that even students themselves are becoming concerned, as officials have held focus groups with students.
“We know that the current safety structure that we have in place is not effective,” she said.
While Craig said that they value the school’s current safety monitors, they are not trained or equipped to deal with more severe instances of violence.
Officers would help with high-level violent incidents such as drug use, weapons and physical violence, and could also patrol buildings, help with school arrival and dismissal, and visit classrooms to host educational programming.
Two officers would be stationed at Harrisburg High School-John Harris Campus, one at Camp Curtin Middle School and one would float between the elementary buildings. Safety monitors would still be present at each school.
Craig said that officers employed by the district would be required to be certified officers or retired state police and would have to go through resource officer training and cultural training, etc.
District receiver Dr. Lori Suski also brought up the fact that the district has been weighing this idea for several years, even previously hosting town hall meetings with the public on the topic. One major concern of community members, she said, was that having officers in schools could create a “school-to-prison pipeline.”
“So my caveat is, I think it’s going to be critical to the success moving forward, if we move in this direction, that the administration is trained in what is a school discipline issue versus when to involve the police,” Suski said. “That is extremely important. School policing can be very effective, but it should not be used at all times. They’re in the building, but they’re not there to do the job of a principal or assistant principal.”
For example, she said police should not be doing locker searches unless there is strong evidence to believe that a student may have a weapon.
“So, we need to make sure that our principals are trained to ensure that we are not violating the rights of students and creating a school-to-prison pipeline that several in the community have expressed concerns about,” she said.
The district’s new Superintendent Dr. Benjamin Henry spoke up, assuring Suski and the board that they would make sure that is not the case, and are solely focused on keeping students safe.
“As a school district, one of our main responsibilities is safety, and we need to ensure that every kid that comes to our school every morning gets home safe every afternoon,” he said. “This is one of the systems that we need to be in place right now in order to make sure that our kids are safe.”
Craig said that the district will bring the matter to Suski for her approval at the next board meeting.
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