Portland Public Schools Votes To Add Police Officers In Schools

PORTLAND, OR – Portland's school board voted Tuesday night to spend $1.2 million each year to add nine police officers to its safety program. The 4-1 vote would put police officers in schools five days a week during the school year.

Many people showed up at the board's meeting to express opposition to the plan, saying that the district had not done nearly enough outreach and needed to hear more from students and parents.

The board's student representative pleaded with board members to delay the vote.

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Much of the opposition argument focused on whether adding officers actually made students safer and whether or not the officers were even needed given that while officers responded to more than 4,000 calls in the last school year, only 13 arrests were made.

While the district currently has an agreement with the Portland Police Bureau to provide school resource officers in some schools three days a week. The current plan has the police bureau providing the officers at no cost.

Under the new plan, the district would now pay the bureau to have them in schools every school day. Each of the nine officers would be assigned to one of the district's nine high school clusters. The clusters include a high school and the schools that feed into it.

The proposal now goes to the Portland City Council, which has to approve it.

File photo via Portland Public Schools.