School resource officer program at WRDSB to undergo review

Trustees with the Waterloo Region District School Board have approved a motion for a review of the school resource officer program.

The motion was approved during a meeting Monday night.

In June of this year, the school board chose to suspend the school resource officer program after organizers with the African, Caribbean and Black Network of Waterloo Region and other groups called for police defunding and an end to the school resource officer program and a community outreach program with the Waterloo Regional Police Service. 

The board will now set up an ad hoc committee, which will include three trustees, one student trustee, two principals or vice-principals, three teachers, three parents, three students, among others.

The review of the program and the board's relationship with the Waterloo regional police will incorporate the following:

• The origins and history of the program.
• The current scope of the program.
• Data on the role played by school resource officers, including number and type of interactions, number of arrests of students, etc.
• Possible rationales for discontinuing the program.
• Possible rationales for continuing the program, whether in its current form or in some other form.
• Information from other school boards on their relationship to their local police service and any changes that they may be contemplating to that relationship.

The decision to review the school resource officers came during the same meeting when trustees voted in favour of reviewing the names of all schools and board facilities to see if there are any with racist links.