Saint Paul, MN —The Minnesota House of Representatives last Monday approved a bill to improve school safety after a change in law last year resulted in school resource officers (SROs) to be removed from many schools throughout the state or their job duties minimized thus impacting school safety. State Representative Andrew Myers, R-Tonka Bay, issued the following statement reacting to Monday’s vote:
“Last week's vote was an important one in making sure that our schools are safe for our educators, students, and staff,” said Myers. “As a parent of four school aged children, it is disappointing that it took this long to fix this error and bring in the boots on the ground to get this done.
“Children are our most precious resource, and this should have been addressed before the school year. Nevertheless, getting the SRO fix done was a top priority and I am hopeful that we can continue to provide the needed solutions to the other errors that were rushed through the House and Senate during last year’s legislative session.”
The issue traces back to an omnibus education bill (HF 2497) enacted in 2023 that imposed prohibitions on the use of force in schools, banning certain physical holds by “an employee or agent of a district, including a school resource officer, security personnel, or police officer contracted with a district."
Language in the new measure provides updates which exclude SROs as employees or agents of a school district, exclude SROs from the prohibitions on prone restraints and physical holds; revise the “reasonable force standard” and mandate school districts and charter schools use only trained SROs and establishes new training and model policy requirements for law enforcement.
The House approved the bill 124-8 and it now awaits action in the Senate.
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