Cops Back On Campus At PVUSD Schools After Student Slaying

WATSONVILLE, CA — School resource officers will be back at two Pajaro Valley Unified School District campuses in the wake of an on-campus killing at Aptos High School.

The PVUSD board voted 6-1 last week to bring back Santa Cruz County sheriff's deputies as school resource officers, with Trustee Maria Orozco dissenting due to concerns about ways that money could be better spent.

The board voted unanimously to pair school resource officers with mental health clinicians at Aptos and Watsonville High Schools in a two-year pilot program, and enact safety improvements such as adding campus supervisors to high schools, improving cell coverage at Aptos High and adding more security cameras to high schools. The cost is expected to total $1.2 million in its first year, including some $824,000 in recurring costs.

Other cities have also partnered school resource officers with mental health clinicians, Superintendent Michelle Rodriguez said at the Sept. 15 meeting. If the program is successful in Aptos High and Watsonville High, the board would consider its continuation in 2024. The program could also expand to Pajaro Valley High School, Lookout Santa Cruz reported.

The special meeting came two weeks after two students were arrested after a 17-year-old boy identified as Gerardo was fatally stabbed multiple times and just over a year after the school board voted to remove school resource officers.

A GoFundMe online fundraiser to benefit Gerardo's family as it grieves raised some $59,000 as of Monday.

Testimony from students, parents and staff during the hourslong, emotionally charged public comment portion of the meeting was mixed.

Supporters said more supervision was needed, and that law enforcement on campus invested in students and brought an added sense of security to campuses.

A speaker who identified herself as Sarah, an Aptos High parent and fourth-grade teacher of the slain student, said "parents send our children to school with the faith that it is a safe space."

"My student's death has revealed the need for more compassion for a family that trusted their child would come home from school on August 31st, and instead they are grappling with a life sentence of suffering as parents who have had to bury their child," she said.

Critics said fights and drug use continued despite the presence of officers, and felt the money could be better spent on hiring more teachers, counselors, staff or mental health resources.

Pablo Orozco-Castro, a FUERTE Wraparound social worker who worked with local students, addressed white parents calling for school resource officers and underscored concerns shared by many Latinos and people of color who testified at the meeting.

"All your kids will be safe, it's our bodies that will be suffering the consequences," he said. "It is connection, not intimidation, that brings change."

Trustee Maria Orozco, who cast the lone dissenting vote against reinstating school resource officers, became emotional as she spoke prior to the board's vote. She said the district should instead focus on improving safety and security on-campus by expanding services such as after-school programs and programs to address poverty and food insecurity — what she called the root cause of issues in the community.

"I think we owe that much to Gerardo and his family," she said. "In fact, we owe that much to all youth that we've lost to violence, so let's buckle down and get to work. The [school resource officers] are not the solution."

Trustee Jennifer Schacher said she felt a school resource officer "should be more of a community service officer" who speaks with students about the dangers of gangs and social media, for example, and does not play a role in school disciplinary matters.

Rodriguez said the school district plans to have a third-party look into the Aptos High stabbing to determine what happened before, during and after the attack in hopes to prevent such an incident in the future.

Watch the meeting:

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