Will Peninsula School resource officers stay or go?

One Monterey County School district is renewing resource officer contracts after others shot them down.
But there is a catch: The Monterey Peninsula Unified School district board has voted to keep the SROs for another year instead of the proposed two years.

The school district has been splitting the school resource officer bill with Marina, Seaside and Monterey. With a tight budget and community concerns of having police on campus, the district said the cities that want resource officers might have to pay on their own starting next year.

“Our SRO program has been very successful; they have been really integrated into our campuses and have provided a great level of support to our administration, teachers, and staff and student,” said Superintendent PK Diffenbaugh.

Michael Ball is the SRO for Marina, covering five schools.

“I have a very good rapport. In fact, I just spoke with some students about what we call sexting. And we’ve got some problems around the county, around the world, and I want to educate instead of prosecute,” Ball said.

Still, the district said it may not pay the $250,000 to help keep the three officers next year.

And there’s another concern.

“Police brutality, things that have come to the surface regarding different videos of police misconduct. You know, I do think that from some in the community that they didn’t feel that this was necessary or helpful,” Diffenbaugh said.

Ball said now, he doesn’t have enough time to meet all his goals.

“It saddens me that we are going down this road. I know in my heart and my experience that pulling officers out of schools is only going to slow things down. It’s also going to create more issues regarding the safety of the public and the safety of the students here,” Ball said.

Diffenbaugh said for the 2017-2018 school year, he will be working to figure out how to measure the effectiveness of SROs and bring the results to the board.

Come next spring, the district will make a final decision and that money might go towards traditional counseling and other diversion programs instead.