‘Guardians for the city’: Inside the job of school resource officers in Peoria

It was August 1971.

America was still mired in Vietnam, with the Pentagon Papers bringing to light the full scope of the conflict and the government's role in covering it up. Amtrak had begun service just four months prior, bringing together many of the nation's most notable rail lines, with the Peoria Rocket being a notable exception.

Apollo 15 was launched complete with the Lunar Roving Vehicle, allowing astronauts the ability not just to walk on the surface of the moon, but drive much as they would on Earth.

And in Peoria, the local school district made a decision that would have a significant impact on the future of the district's safety and security. Right before the 1971-72 school year began, it approved a plan to form its own security division that would recruit and train officers to handle any number of situations within Peoria school buildings.

The new department began with humble intentions. Only 24 people were assigned to the district's buildings at the outset of the program. But in 2024, Peoria Public Schools' Department of School Safety has become something that the district feels proud of — a form of private security that, in some ways, is a model for other districts across the state, area and country.

With the decision in February by Chicago Public Schools to end its partnership with the Chicago Police Department, how Peoria and other school districts across the area operate in terms of security is under the microscope, with Peoria's unique setup taking center stage.

Debate about firearms

Demario Boone has been working with the department since 2006. In 2016, the Manual High School graduate became the district's director of security, a role that — at the time — came with plenty of challenges.

For starters, District 150's security force had been armed for a long period of time. However, in 2011, officers were asked to keep their weapons at work, instead of bringing them home.

In 2014, the department was "deactivated" after the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board decided that school districts couldn't go into business for themselves and operate in-house police departments in the state of Illinois.

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For a time, armed security was provided by the Peoria Police Department, in conjunction with the unarmed District 150 security team. In 2020, shortly after the George Floyd murder brought forth a debate about police involvement in schools, the district opted to bring back firearms for its security staff in its buildings.

Before that saga, the district itself tried to move the officers toward more of an school resource officer role, rather than leaning toward the police side of things. Boone says at this point, they're more of a hybrid of a police department and a security firm, with certain perks that set it apart from others.

"We're not security; we're not police," Boone said. "We have privileges that security firms wouldn't have – things that we can do as far as prosecutions and assisting arrests – but we don't have police arrest powers. We would detain and articulate in the report why there was a student or adult detained, then the arrest goes to court."

Unique among the districts

That kind of hybrid approach – not exactly a police department, but not just private security – isn't common among school districts in the Peoria area.

Districts in Chillicothe, Metamora and Dunlap partner with local law enforcement agencies to provide SRO services to their schools. Others, such as Fieldcrest, Roanoke-Benson and Hollis, don't use a SRO due to their size, opting to work directly with law enforcement whenever the need arises.

Indeed, according to University of Illinois Springfield professor Ryan Williams, just over 50% of all schools in the United States have some kind of police presence inside. That is an increase of 10% from a decade prior, with Williams saying that that districts are motivated by mass shootings to try and do something to make parents and students feel safe, even if the data shows that kids today aren't as violent as those in the recent past.

"With the Parkland shooting, Uvalde, all of these shootings in schools, (there's) a belief that juveniles are getting more delinquent — which is not substantiated by the data," Williams said. "In fact, these are some of the best cohorts of kids this country's ever seen as far as crime goes. They might have more depression and anxiety, but they're not even close to being as violent as the kids in the early '90s."

School resource officers aren't a totally new phenomenon, however. Williams said that the presence of police in schools goes back to the late 1940s, when Los Angeles dispatched local police officers to schools that were desegregating. A 1999 article in American School and University credits Flint, Michigan, with having the first SRO in 1953, with places such as Chicago and Fresno, California, following in the 1960s.

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Williams noted that the colloquialism "Officer Friendly" had its start in Chicago, with programs like it popping up all across the country during the late 20th century, such as D.A.R.E. and G.R.E.A.T.

However, the 1990s brought forth many issues that led schools to beef up their security. The "super-predator" myth frightened many school districts, with the notion that young people would be more violent than ever. In addition, the 1994 crime bill aimed to put more police in schools to combat violent crime.

Another major factor that arose late in the decade was the number of mass shootings in schools — namely, the massacre at Columbine. The 1999 deaths of 12 students, one teacher and gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at a high school in well-off, suburban Denver put fear back into the hearts of parents and teachers, fears only maximized by school shootings over the course of the last 25 years.

That motivation to prevent a mass shooting — to prevent the next Columbine, Sandy Hook, Parkland or Uvalde — is the primary reason that Williams believes the number of armed, sworn police officers in schools has gone up. The fact that students were responsible for many of these crimes is a motivating factor behind districts trying to do something to ensure the safety of their peers.

"That fear strikes the heart of parents, that 'my kid's not safe at school,'" Williams said.

Dealing with fights, trying to be a mentor

When Boone became the head of the security division in 2016, he had to ensure that the people who worked for him got back into the right frame of mind.

He freely admits that morale was low after the department's decertification. In order to get through it, they adopted the mindset of being more than just SROs, instead being more of a guardian-type of personality.

"I knew we were something different," Boone said. "I embraced that, and I think that change was the biggest change because now we became more guardians for students (and) families."

Boone said that officers have become more trained in social-emotional learning and trauma care, as opposed to more traditional police training. The work done in those softer skills have helped in situations like needing to break up fights between students at Northwoods Mall.

Boone said that the mall's security firm hired the SROs separately from District 150 in large part due to the relationships built by the officers at the schools. He said that the partnership proved to be too successful, providing a solid bulwark against any kind of dangerous situation happening at the mall.

"We did such a good job that we priced ourselves out of a job," Boone said. "We took anonymity away from kids. We would walk the mall for four to five hours just talking to kids and families. That was a deterrent; the kids knew we knew them and that there was actually a caring adult there."

Soon afterward, Boone and his department started being contacted by concerned parents who needed someone that they could trust to help deal with other things, such as mental health issues. He saw that as an extension of that guardian role, not just in the school buildings, but in the community at large.

"We took on this new life as guardians for the city," Boone said. "We went from this pseudo-security, just walk around and break up fights and protect stuff ... it was 'We are actually guardians of the city.'"

Boone admits that there are no normal days for his department, with Mondays mostly spent taking care of any outside issues that could have popped up for students over the weekend. Any sort of fight that takes place outside of school grounds is looked into by the Department of School Safety, with the hope that it won't metastasize and turn into something bigger.

"Monday morning, we were finding out who was beating on whom, trying to mend those fences (and) trying to make sure there isn't a fight inside the school," Boone said. "Anything can be thrown at you; they're like little cities."

Anything can include one instance where a young girl lost custody of her newborn child after an altercation with her boyfriend forced the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to get involved.

Instead of leaving the child with a family member, she turned to one of Boone's officers, someone who she knew she could trust to take care of them.

"The only person this lady wanted in the child's life was the SRO," Boone said. "The SRO literally adopted this child and has had him for two years."

Thankfully, one thing that Boone said he doesn't deal with often is people bringing a deadly weapon to school. He said that during his tenure as chief of security, they haven't ran into many situations where someone brings an actual firearm into a building.

They do find fake guns that look like the real thing often, but rarely does someone bring a real gun into a Peoria Public Schools building. The last time someone brought a gun inside was in 2021, according to Boone.

His team does find Mace or pocket knives on a student's person, mostly before the school day while they enter the building and are being wanded by SROs. Much like the guns, Boone says that these incidents are rare, influenced in large part by the kinds of situations that students find themselves on a daily basis.

"Some kids are just trying to survive," Boone said. "Some girls walk around school with Mace every day because outside, they don't want to be grabbed (or) they don't want to be fought. They're walking to school in dark alleys. There's some girls who turn that over to SROs and (they) have to make sure that they get the Mace at the end of the day so that they can make it home safe, or they have a pocket knife on them that we have to confiscate. We get that a lot."

Helping to provide some context into what the SROs can be working to improve comes from a digital report system created when Boone became chief. The old days of handwriting reports are a thing of the past, with Boone and others now able to track incidents of bullying, people bringing weapons to school and officer interventions, just to name a few.

"With the data we get, we are able to address school safety and climate improvements by school," Boone said. "Measuring success for me data wise is the numbers showing that the officers are having an active role in safety related matters, student interventions, and helping students and families at the root causes. The team and the data is showing that."

Choices, choices

The uniqueness of District 150's security team doesn't extend to other districts in the area.

In Chillicothe, Illinois Valley Central District 321 mostly works with the local police department for an SRO, of which there is only a single one. Superintendent Chad Allison said that staffing is an issue with the Chillicothe Police Department, with the department only recently providing the approval for a second officer in the IVC district.

"We're hoping next school year to have two resource officers back in our district," Allison said. "Ideally, we as a district and school board would certainly like to have an officer in every building. It provides that proactive safety that we're looking for. For us, we have one K-4 building, one 4-8 building, a high school and a K-8 building. Some officers are more comfortable spending the day at a K-4 building, which is little kids, so the job responsibilities are a little bit different."

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The agreement with Chillicothe police allows the district to pay for salary and benefits for the officers, while keeping them under the umbrella of the police department. In total, the contract for the officers goes to around $90,000 a year, according to Allison, who likes the fact that he has an officer there to protect the students in the district, most notably his three sons.

"I have three boys in the district, and I certainly like the fact of having an officer available," Allison said. "We're pretty rural, so if we ever had a legitimate school crisis (or) safety situation, we're a significant distance from county support or from other police departments. Having someone there certainly makes the district feel, hopefully, safer."

The presence of an SRO in other suburban and rural districts has caused others in the area to consider what it would be worth to add one into their district.

In Tremont, Superintendent Sean Berry said that his district doesn't have an SRO at the moment, but many parents, envious of the safety set-up in their peer districts, would like them to consider hiring one in the future.

"There's been some questions from families in the district about, 'Why don't we have one?'" Berry said. "It's because neighboring districts have them – Dee-Mack has one, Delavan has one, Morton has an officer that goes from building to building – so when you (don't) have that, it starts to stand out."

Berry is open to having an SRO, although he admits that the district is doing fine without one. Where he sees the potential is in programming with the officer, through assistance with driver's education and safety presentations for younger students.

"We (can) have them here during the day to utilize them in this role because there's not going to be a whole lot of constant security issues," Berry said. "We would develop a program where we would utilize that person for education purposes primarily and then the security piece is already in place for them here."

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The decisions made by districts like Tremont come in distinct contrast to those made in larger cities, with Chicago being a notable example. While most in central Illinois approve of their school resource officers, Williams said that the experiences of students and staff in some areas of Chicago might be a bit different.

"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that police officers in schools are linked to a disproportionate amount of discipline (to) boys, Black students and even disabled students," Williams said. "What happens with these resource officers is what used to be a minor offense is escalated, maybe (to) as high as an arrest.

You have kids that, before they graduate from high school, are now getting expelled, suspended, arrested for things that before the school resource officers (arrived), the vice principal would have dealt with in the office after school. Now, the problem is, when these get escalated, the presence of a school resource officer increases the chance that behavior that would have otherwise be dealt with by the school disciplinary system is referred to the actual juvenile justice system."

He said that data indicates schools with SROs see a much larger rate of suspensions, transfers out of those schools to other institutions and police referrals than those who do not. He feels that for the positive feelings that people may have towards SROs – a perception of safety, for instance – there are distinct negatives that need to be addressed.

"There is a trade-off," Williams said. "There are negative aspects of hiring school resource officers that a school district has to think about and reflect upon."

For his part, Boone said that he felt Chicago made the decision that was in its best interest, noting that if it had procedures in place to protect students and staff even without police help, it can continue to keep people safe.

"As long as they have a proper security team in place to keep students and staff safe without any drop off in safety measures, that's what's most important," Boone said.

Just how effective?

The studies and research into who exactly goes through the juvenile justice system through SROs begs the question of just how effective they are on a daily basis. Williams says that SROs do a decent job of preventing people from getting into fights and raising awareness of drug-related issues involving students.

What they don't do, Williams said, is the thing that many districts install SROs to do: prevent school shootings. He said that no evidence exists linking the presence of SROs to effective prevention of school shootings across the nation.

"If there's a shooting at your school, they're not preventing it," Williams said. "There's some weird finding I found that (said) having a school resource officer actually increases the chances that you'll have a school shooting, which doesn't make any sense unless you think about school shootings as a form of suicide for kids. They want to die, they want to commit suicide, (but) unfortunately they're going to be taking out their peers and fellow students with them."

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In a more troubling finding, Williams said that schools with SROs have a smaller percentage of students who graduate and go to college. Students who are arrested typically aren't able to obtain student loans, a key tool in helping students coming from poorer backgrounds achieve a college education.

For the cost that many U.S. schools are willing to put up in order to have them in their buildings – a combined $15 billion annually between SROs and private security – Williams says that schools may want to consider utilizing those funds in things like school psychologists and counselors who may be able to better reach students at a socio-emotional level.

"There's no evidence that this saves lives," Williams said. "Personally and professionally, I would rather have trained, licensed social workers, psychiatrists and those kinds of resources in the school prioritized over police officers (to) prevent the shootings before they start, because once they start, there's not much that police officer is going to be doing."

Both Allison and Boone feel that the presence of SROs in their districts do help with safety, with Allison saying that having an SRO in the building is a good way for students to gain trust in their local police department.

"Our hope is that the more they see police officers in the buildings, the more comfortable they become," Allison said. "If our students see things or feel that things are out of place, uncomfortable and dangerous, they would be more willing – wherever they are – to communicate that to the police officers that would be available."

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Boone went several steps further, proclaiming that Peoria Public Schools were the safest in Illinois, mainly because of the work that he and his team do on a daily basis to connect with students.

That kind of statement does not go unnoticed by others in Illinois. Boone has been tasked with training other school districts in Peoria's ways – Decatur, for one – and has received plenty of outside plaudits for his work. Campus Safety magazine named Boone ITS Director of the Year for K-12 schools in the United States in 2020, beating out districts in California and Texas with bigger budgets than the one provided in Peoria. In addition, Security magazine named the district's Department of Public Safety among the top 500 departments in the country.

But for Boone, the biggest thing that sets his department apart from others is the fact that they don't work for a police department, but are integrated into the school just like a teacher or a principal or the students themselves. With that approach in mind, they don't have to go through with a kind of "hammer-and-nail approach" that he feels many police departments institute if they have a partnership with a district.

"That's kind of been the issue with SRO teams around the country," Boone said. "Some school districts have said it's a hammer-and-nail approach. 'We call our SROs, they come to the school, they make an arrest, they can bark orders at us and tell us to give them information, but they don't give us information.' That's the complaint I get from some school districts that want to have what we have.

We have a great relationship with Peoria police. We share information, but other school districts don't have that because they don't have the relationship or because it's the hammer-and-nail approach. For us, being married to a school district is the big key."

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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Inside the job of school resource officers in Peoria