Madison police shield
It feels to me like there has been a simmering discontent with how Madison’s schools are being run. And now what had been simmering may be boiling over.
Earlier this week there was a large melee outside East High School, which followed a similar event last month. Multiple Madison police officers responded and some were assaulted. At least one officer was injured. After Monday’s altercation, over a third of East students didn’t show up to school the next day.
This, of course, raises questions about the wisdom of ending the school resource officer program in which a Madison cop had been embedded in each of the four high schools. That program had been in place for over two decades. When the program ended after the 2019 school year, three of the four officers were persons of color and, over the years, many of the SROs were Black or women. They were generally well-liked and regarded as positive role models.
The contract between the city and the district was ended by the school board after years of pressure from the group Freedom, Inc. That organization disrupted school board meetings and covered then-board President Gloria Reyes’ front yard with defaced American flags. Reyes, a former cop who supported the SROs, eventually changed her position and the board voted unanimously to end the program.
The activists made no case that any of the SROs behaved improperly. Instead, their arguments were related to the broad national history of tension between police departments and communities of color and they objected to what they called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
Supporters of SROs, including me, countered that because these officers got to know the students, staff and some of the parents, and because they knew the physical layout of the buildings, they were able to defuse problems before they became blow-ups, like the one that happened this week. While there is no way to say for sure that the recent East High incidents would not have happened had an SRO been there, that seems like a good bet to me.
It’s also clearly the case that the police will be involved in our high schools anyway. In fact, according to a story in the Wisconsin State Journal, the cops have been called to East or the surrounding area 63 times since the start of this school year.
I would argue that officers who come to the campus cold without knowing the players or the building are going to be much less effective than an SRO who knows everything intimately. That’s likely to result in more arrests and more students in that school to prison pipeline, instead of fewer, as the activists wanted.
Three school board seats are up next spring. These are seats held by board President Ali Muldrow and members Ananda Mirilli and Cris Carusi. All three were supporters of removing the SROs and they are leaders in the direction of this current board.
That direction includes a just-passed budget with a nine percent increase in property taxes for the average homeowner. An increase that large is possible because Madison voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum allowing the district to exceed state taxing limits. I voted against that operating budget referendum because I didn’t trust this school board to use the money wisely. (I voted for a companion referendum on capital spending because the board has less discretion on physical investments.)
While I want to acknowledge my respect for anybody who steps up to take on the largely thankless job of local office, I don’t like the direction of this board. I think the board isn’t taking the basic safety of students and staff seriously enough. I would like to see a board that is focused on safety and order as the basis for learning.
My sense is that a lot of Madisonians share my concerns. But the real question is whether anyone will step up to take on the challenge of changing the board’s direction, or at least being a minority contrary voice. This current board is pretty homogenous in its views. It has no member who would qualify as a fiscal watchdog or who would emphasize personal responsibility or take a generally more centrist view of education.
There’s nothing more important to the long-term health of our city than its public schools. It's becoming clear to a growing number of Madisonians that a lot is not right there. Let’s hope that serious people committed to taking our schools in a better direction run for office next spring.
Dave Cieslewicz is a writer who served as Mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. He also blogs at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
