A bill Democrats passed last session has undermined the ability of School Resource Officers to properly do their job in keeping schools safe. Democrats passed an education bill that eliminated a School Resource Officer’s (SRO) ability to use prone restraints as a way of breaking up and limiting student fights. This change caused a lot of concern, and left law enforcement agencies wondering if SROs could even assist and manage physical incidents at all. Because of this change and the uncertainty around it, nearly three dozen police departments across the state have been forced to remove SROs from local schools. This law change was shortsighted and incredibly wrong.

Republicans have put forward a solution: a bill to repeal the law change that eliminated prone restraints or physical holds. The proposed bill will not alter the ban on neck and chokehold restraints. Both House and Senate Republicans have teamed up with law enforcement officers from throughout the state to make this language happen. Unfortunately, Governor Walz would have to call a special session to allow this fix to be implemented. So far, he has shown no interest in doing so, leaving our schools and SROs in the dark.

Because of how broad the language passed was, it caused understandable concern for police departments across the state, leading to the withdrawal of SROs from schools. We want police departments and SROs to have the clarity and tools needed to be successful in keeping our kids safe—these folks care about ensuring the safety of our students and their hands have been tied by this bad Democrat policy. This issue has been incredibly frustrating to parents, schools, and law enforcement officers.  

Parents expect their kids to be out of harm’s way when they drop them off at school for the day, in part because of the important work done by SROs to keep students and administrators safe. Student safety is not a partisan issue—we should ALL care about the safety of our kids.

I have joined Republicans to call on Governor Walz, asking for a special session that prioritizes the needed law change. SROs do so much to keep schools safe, it is shameful we are even in this position. It is even worse that Governor Walz has yet to show any interest in calling a special session to fix the issue. We need to keep our kids and schools safe—that has to be the top priority. With school just barely starting, now is the time to make the law change and get SROs back in schools while we can.