Watch the press conference here.

Legislative Republicans gathered on Wednesday morning to propose a bipartisan bill to fix a recent change in law that is causing the removal of Student Resource Officers (SRO) from public schools. They presented a letter from House Minority Leader Lisa Demuth (R-Cold Spring) and Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson (R- East Grand Forks) asking the Governor to meet to discuss a special session. Also attending the press conference was Blaine Police Chief Brian Podany and Centennial Schools Superintendent Jeff Holmberg who shared their concerns about how this change is impacting safety for students and staff as the school year begins.  

“Students, teachers, and school staff are less safe than they were a year ago as a direct result of the loss of school resource officers,” said Rep. Jeff Witte (R-Lakeville). “As a former SRO myself, I know firsthand how important it is to have an officer on site to respond to challenges, be a resource, prevent problems, and build relationships. SROs play a critical role in keeping our schools safe, and it is unacceptable to be sending our students back to school without this resolved. This is not a time for partisanship or political games—we need a special session to take swift action to get SROs back in our schools and ensure our students and teachers have a safe learning environment this school year.” 

Blaine Police Chief Brian Podany was clear that until there is clarity, SROs are not able to do their job as they have been trained. “The varying interpretations have created confusion about how to respond to and manage incidents in our schools. Attorney General Keith Ellison even issued binding guidance in which he indicated that the questions we continue to have are ‘more appropriately directed at the legislature’,” Podany said. “It is hard enough for our educators and our peace officers to manage at times chaotic, violent, and unusual situations involving our children and their safety. Having to navigate the legal confusion surrounding that in a split-second sets up all involved for failure.” Podany said he expects a vote to suspendSROs in the Centennial District as soon as tomorrow.    

Centennial School Districts serves Blaine, Centerville, Circle Pines, Lexington, and Lino Lakes families with 6,500 students enrolled from elementary to high school. Holmgren explained the unique role SROs have in the Centennial district, which also educates juveniles incarcerated at Lino Lakes correctional facility. “It is absolutely essential that we have a strong community and school district partnership on issues that impact all of us,” Centennial Schools Superintendent Jeff Holmberg said. “We collaborate regularly with our community safety and law enforcement partners to review safety and security measures and implement our Crisis Management plans to keep our students, staff, and campuses safe. These efforts will certainly continue but the possibility of not having an SRO to serve as an important liaison to our ongoing efforts and partnership in safety is not a desired outcome for us. The SRO is an integral part of our district’s and community efforts to keep our students, staff, and facilities safe.” 

Sen. Zach Duckworth (R-Lakeville) will be Chief Author of the Senate bill to repeal the changed law. “The safety of our kids, teachers, and schools should always come before partisan politics.  Minnesotans expect us to govern responsibly.  Moms and dads count on us to safeguard their children.  The confusion surrounding this law is causing a growing number of School Resource Officers to be pulled out of schools across our state leaving students and staff vulnerable in cases of emergency,” Senator Duckworth said. “I’m calling on the Governor to bring Republicans and Democrats together for a special session before school starts so that we can fix this issue, keep our SROs, and ensure our kids are safe.  The urgency is real, it’s unacceptable to parents that the legislature would wait six months or more to address this.  There’s no time to spare when it comes to protecting our children – let’s show some bipartisanship and put our kids first.” 

The bill as proposed simply repeals the recent law change eliminating prone restraints or physical holds and repeals the change to use of force standards to revert back to the original language that was in statute. The change does not impact the 2021 bill that banned all neck and chokehold restraints and remains in place for students and all Minnesotans.  

So far, at least six police departments have announced they are removing SROs in the last two weeks, including Dilworth and Hitterdahl, Moorhead, Rockford, Redwood Falls, Andover, and Coon Rapids.