New push to potentially bring school resource officers back to Seattle Public Schools

Could student resource officers return to Seattle Public Schools? That’s a question some in the Emerald City are asking.

There’s a push by some to bring SROs back in light of the tragic shooting at Ingraham High School over a week ago. SPS hasn’t had SROs since 2020.

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Victoria Beach with the African American Community Advisory Council is leading the push to bring them back, as she believes something has to change in order to make schools safe again.

“We can work with them and hold them accountable at the same time. And if something did happen, the school would not let them get away with it,” Beach said.

“We don’t have anything to lose by putting them back in the school. It’s a no-brainer,” Beach said.

But some students don’t see it that way.

“We have teachers telling us that if, not if but when a school shooter comes in, they would take a bullet for us. And that’s not natural. That’s not right,” Chetan Soni with the Seattle Student Union said.

Soni and other students believe adding cops will add to the problem, not solve it.

“We should not. … Why are we having more armed people at our schools when we can train them on de-escalation tactics instead of bringing more guns into the schools?” Soni said.

“And that just seems to add more problems considering that students want to stop the use of guns,” Garfield sophomore Yabsira Bekele said.

While some may disagree on how to make schools safer, everyone believes this conversation is far from over.

“And now it’s come to our community and I feel like steps need to be taken,” Bekele said.

“We need to do whatever we can to keep our kids safe,” Beach said.

SPS told KIRO 7 there has not been any active conversations on bringing SROs back at this time. But if things change, it would let us know.

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