Michaela Therattil

February 11th, 2023

Recently in a New York Times article, footage was released of Tauris Sledge, an 18-year-
old boy being thrown to the ground by a School Resource Officer for arguing with a teacher for
refusing to play kickball. Tauris is now faced with criminal charges including claims of resisting
arrest and assault. Stories like these are far too common and make it clear that police do not have
a place in our schools.
As a social worker, hearing about how unsafe a child feels in school is too common of a
story. From the numerous mass shootings our country faces to having these officers roam our
hallways, students are faced with danger every day, sometimes under the guise of safety. School
Resource Officers are put in schools to help keep our children safe yet time and time again we
see the violence that is brought into the school by having them there. Students do not feel safe
and if anything, we are putting their lives and mental health in danger by having SROs in
schools. As we can see from the incident with Tauris Sledge, that officer was not breaking up an
altercation or intervening in a way that was necessary. He chose violence. He chose to harm a
child. A speaker who recently came to our class, has taught in the Chicago Public Schools for
over 25 years and shared with us some of the experiences he has had over the years. In particular,
he brought up this idea of his students not necessarily listening all the time, but they were no
threat to the actual classroom or other students. However, the police on campus targeted many of
his students of color, to the point that they just expected to be harassed by an officer. Is that
really what we want in a place that is supposed to be a safe place for our students?
The reality of the situation is that children are not always going to act in a way that is
favorable. They may choose to be defiant over authority and maybe argue back. Defiance and
rebellion are normal parts of adolescence and child development. If children were always
behaving well, they would not be children. But by what means does that mean we incite violence
over a small act of defiance? The boy in this incident and many others could have easily been
sent to the principal’s office or been reprimanded in a way that was peaceful. In addition,
incidents like these add to our understanding of the school-to-prison pipeline. In the material
found in the course I am in at The University of Chicago, the theme of violence breeding
violence comes up frequently. Many of the students in these schools normalize the acts of
violence inflicted by police. This causes them to expect this treatment and, in some ways, makes
them act up in ways they would not normally behave. It leads me to this point of why SROs in
the way they currently are can be a bad thing for our students. If we want our students to have
good futures, we need to cultivate an environment where they can learn and grow. Not where
they live in fear.
It is understandable that we want our schools to be as safe as possible and this idea of
having an authority figure there to do so is not so outlandish of an idea. In an article we read in
class, the author, Quinn Meyers, gets a quote from vice chair of the LSC at Kenwood Academy
High School in Chicago who states that SROs protect students who may face violence on the
way to school or keep the children safe from those outside of school. Unfortunately, the safety of
students is threatened every time they enter school or choose to leave their homes. However,
SROs are not the answer, or at least not in the way that they currently inhabit our schools. In a
research study by Curran et al, the results show that despite SROs saying that it is not their job to
discipline students on day-to-day school issues, they often times involve themselves in activities
not typically in their job description such as verbal reprimands, using physical presence to
discipline and bringing misbehaving students to staff members (pg. 45). This study is a great
example of how the job description of an SRO is not necessarily the exact work that these
officers engage in.
While the school system cannot be fixed right away, the least we can do is take out
School Resource officers out of our schools. As we look towards the future of our country, we
see these youth will one day take our place in society. Do we want our next generation to be
raised on fear and violence? I think like so many others, we long for a utopia where everything is
seemingly perfect. This may be something we can only aspire for, but there are small steps we
can take to make our world one step closer to that dream, if not for us, then for our children. Just
like the incident of Tauris Sledge and so many others, we deserve to have a school environment
safe from the violence incited by the police.

References

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/25/video/school-police-tennessee.html
https://news.wttw.com/2020/07/14/debate-over-police-chicago-public-schools
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/705499