No cops at Garfield High. Seattle School Board rejects plan to revive resource officer program

Garfield High School will not get an armed on-campus Seattle police officer this year after all.

The Seattle School Board voted 5-2 Wednesday against reviving the controversial school engagement officer program at Garfield on a one-year trial basis.

The decision follows months of board discussions about the proposal, including several delayed votes.

It also comes more than a year after the 2023-24 school year ended in tragedy, when Garfield High School student Amarr Murphy-Paine was shot and killed in the school’s parking lot while attempting to break up a fight. (Police have still not made any arrests in connection with the shooting.)

The deadly shooting — and other incidents of gun violence — heightened community calls to improve student safety at Garfield, and across the city and district.

At the time, Seattle Public Schools leaders pledged to consider a range of new measures, from closing campuses during lunch and beefing up security outside of schools to once again stationing police officers inside schools.

But that idea has been a controversial prospect — especially since Seattle had joined a number of school districts across the nation in indefinitely halting programs that stationed armed police officers at schools in the wake of several high-profile police killings in 2020.

Over a dozen students, parents, and school staffers spoke out against restoring the school engagement officer program at Wednesday’s meeting. They aired a variety of concerns, including that students and families would have little control in deciding which officer would be stationed at the school or evaluating how the officer is performing during the year.

Many also took issue with the officer having access to the school building and being armed.

“Guns do not belong in school,” said Makena Gadient, a special education teacher. “Plain and simple.”

Gadient also said she feared the officer stationed at Garfield would not be adequately trained to work with students with disabilities or in restorative justice practices, as most staff across the district are.

“I don’t understand why we’re moving backwards,” Gadient said.

A new amendment presented Wednesday was intended to address some of those concerns about the pilot. It clarified when the officer can be inside the school and emphasized that the officer’s focus would be on external threats, rather than student disciplinary issues.

The amendment also directed the superintendent to create a formal complaint process so that Garfield staff, students, and families could weigh in on the pilot program throughout the year.

But that wasn’t enough for speakers at Wednesday’s meeting — or most of the School Board.

Board member Michelle Sarju said she could not support the proposal because she feared bringing a cop to Garfield would result in Black students being disproportionately disciplined. Just over a quarter of Garfield students are Black.

“Until y’all correct the disparities once and for all, we are not standing on equal ground,” Sarju said. “Too much data says having a police officer in a school creates more disproportionality, not less.”

Liza Rankin and Brandon Hersey were the only two board members to vote in favor of the proposal.

Both agreed the board’s monthslong conversations about reviving the program have been a “complete mess,” as Hersey put it.

But in explaining her “yes” vote, Rankin said she would “take a leap of faith” because Garfield’s principal Tarance Hart has asked the board to support the school engagement officer program.

“We’re talking about a principal who is asking for support to prevent violence around their campus,” Rankin said. “If we don’t trust that Dr. Hart and other principals are asking for the things that we need, then I’m not sure what we’re doing.”

Board President Gina Topp said Thursday that the board has no immediate plans to revisit the issue, but they’ll “continue listening and learning from the feedback we’ve received.”

This article was originally published by KUOW.