Iowa City School District May Partner with Police Looking to Expand Armed Community Officer Presence to Schools

The Iowa City School District and Iowa City Police Department are having discussions about potentially expanding the police department's community resource officer program, currently in place with an officer in downtown Iowa City, to include a few officers with a presence in Iowa City Schools.

Two important caveats: One, the grant that the police department is applying for has an application deadline of May 22 with a lot of details to be ironed out by the district, the department, and the city of Iowa City; and two, one of those details happens to be the fact that those officers would likely be armed with something, potentially guns-- an idea that has come under heavy fire by community members when it was considered in the past.

The matter was discussed by the board and Superintendent Steve Murley during committee planning time and was not on the agenda. It will likely be on the agenda for formal discussion and potential approval by the board at the May 21 formal meeting.

Murley said it is important that the school district let the police department know whether there is district interest or not, although a declaration of interest by the district does not necessarily tie them into participation.

"We have the opportunity to withdraw with it at any point and time," Murley said. "If it doesn't work for us we do not have to continue with that arrangement."

Murley said one potential stumbling block is that the federal money for the community policing, a.k.a. COPS, funding is guaranteed for three years while the grant stipulates that the police officers be hired for terms of at least four years and potentially longer. This would mean that the city and school district would have to develop some sort of cost sharing mechanism, but even then the choice might come down to a choice between keeping the officers on or reducing teachers.

School board member Patti Fields urged caution about the idea both due to the budgetary complexity and because of the many details that would be have to worked out in advance between the district, the police department, and the Iowa City community in a short period of time.

"I think that's also something to keep in mind, the community needs to weigh in, too," Fields said.

Community member Julie Van Dyke spoke against the idea at the meeting, focusing on her opposition of officers having guns in the schools.

"Any gun in a school means that someone could get shot," Van Dyke said. "I don't want any guns in schools."

Van Dyke also balked at the notion of the district needing to fit the decision into a two week window, and that a decision to add officers should only be made after a detailed examination of the proposal not just by the district but by members of the community.

"There is no deadline, if we want to do this we can do this. If we want to do this, we can make it happen federal grant or not," she said.

Superintendent Murley indicated after the meeting that there has been some discussion by lawmakers about potentially paying for community resource officers using categorical money in a similar way that special education teachers are paid for with special designated funding that can only be used for this purpose.

He added that at this time he would lean against the idea of adding the officers, unless an arrangement can be made with the city that protects teachers from being eliminated in order to maintan the resource officer positions in future budget discussions.