Quad Cities Interfaith hosted an open meeting March 15th, asking for Davenport city leaders and school board members to have an open discussion regarding School Resource Officers in the Davenport school district.
Only one member from the Davenport city council, Judith Lee, attended the zoom meeting. Now Quad Cities Interfaith is calling on all city council and school board members to respond with their support or opposition by the end of the day on Friday March 19th.
Their changes include reworking the ways SRO officers interact with students. Interfaith member Hope Luce saying there is no clear plan as of right now to stop inequity from happening. “We did want a clear plan to address this disproportionality issue and leave no room for interpretation.”
The group wants to see new language in the agreement between the city and the davenport school district. Tess Farmer also works for the organization. She says the data from the police department shows the disparities in student interaction with school resource officers. “There’s something wrong there and they haven't even tried to identify what is going wrong let alone try to solve it.”
Data from the Davenport Police Department shows more than two thirds of the arrests in schools are of Black students, even though Black students make up only 20 percent of the population.
In addition to that the data shows school resource officers are four times more likely to use force on a Black student than on a white student.
The group is calling for the elimination of the use of pepper spray as well as weapons.
Quad Cities Interfaith employee Alexandra Dermordy saying, “The statistics from past years do not show racial equity. They show the opposite in really disturbing ways.”
Dermordy saying another big thing they are pushing for is the presence of parents any time a student is questioned by an SRO officer. “We don’t want students to feel cornered or intimidated. We want their parent or legal guardian there to basically know what is going on.”
Other changes include the release of public data when students are referred to the police department or detention centers, as well as all de-escalation attempts, and any time an officer intervenes.
While the group knows there are no overnight solutions to the problem, they’re optimistic this is one big step in the right direction.