Effort fails to pull Shelby County Sheriff's deputies out of Memphis public schools

Shelby County Sheriff's deputies will remain in some Shelby County Schools buildings, a move formalized by the unanimous vote of the school board after months of discussion with students, community members and among themselves at the board and district leadership levels.

The agreement has volleyed back to committee at least once and was not brought before the board until months after deputies were already in school buildings this academic year. Board members voted to approve the agreement Tuesday after also unanimously approving an amendment requiring deputies to comply with school board policy.

Student and community groups have been campaigning against the memorandum of understanding, MOU, for more than a year, speaking out about school officers since the summer of 2020 when people around the country campaigned to defund law enforcement and increase funding for other community resources as a move toward racial equity after George Floyd was killed by police.

Some school districts across the country removed or planned to remove law enforcement from schools that summer.

The Memphis campaign rejected the idea that school resource officers are needed for student safety and instead, equipped with a literature review completed by students at Rhodes College, argued the deputies cause more harm than good. Increasing mental health resources increases school safety, the students said, citing research.

More: ‘He’s here to intimidate me’: Memphis students want deputies out of schools

"As a student I urge you to listen to us," said Zahra Chowdhury, a student with youth organization Bridges, who has been leading the campaign. Although she does not attend an SCS school, she has encouraged students who are to speak at other board meetings.

The campaign has been supported by the ACLU of Tennessee, Planned Parenthood, OUT Memphis, Just City, Whole Child Strategies, the Official Black Lives Matter Memphis Chapter and STAND for Children, among others.

Paul Garner with STAND emailed board members Tuesday asking them to reconsider before voting yes. During public comment Tuesday, he again asked them to "be brave enough to listen to the voices of young people" and end the MOU, questioning why some schools need the sheriff's deputies and others have school-employed officers.

Introducing the agreement, Superintendent Joris Ray said the district and board had been listening to students, pointing to recent student surveys where most of the 5,400 students asked felt the school deputy was important and did not make them anxious. He also pointed to a reported $100 million in contracts for mental health services approved in the last year. While the district could bring all resource officers in house, it would be a move cost prohibitive by about $5 million in salary costs, he said.

SCS pays $50,000 for the agreement with the department and plans to finance the funds through the State of Tennessee Save Act grant. The agreement provides 38 deputies and two rapid response teams.

The school district employs around 125 of its own school resource officers. Both the resource officers and the deputies are armed in school buildings.

"The MOU, and this is another misconception I think I've heard, does not stand in isolation as a plan to address student safety and mental health," Ray said.

Board vote comes amid district safety review

Hovering over the agreement conversations are two recent school incidents. One student was shot by another in the hallway of a South Memphis school this fall. Less than a month later, SCS officers were on the scene of a shooting that happened at a non-SCS after school program building situated among a campus of three SCS schools. On Tuesday, the board opened the meeting honoring the people injured and killed in a school shooting in Michigan.

In the aftermath, some Memphis parents and students involved said they wanted more resources for safe schools, including more school safety personnel.

More: 13-year-old pleads guilty in Memphis school shooting, will be released to youth treatment program

SCS is in the midst of a security review spearheaded by former Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong. Leadership announced the review this fall, a week after the shooting in the South Memphis school. Records requests about the contract are unfilled and the district has said it is not giving interviews on the review until it is complete.

While the review will consider district security policies, including moving to end the MOU by way of establishing the "Peace Force" of district-employed school resource officers, the agreement for deputies in schools will not be a direct part of Armstrong's review, spokesperson Jerica Phillips said.

More: Former MPD director Toney Armstrong will lead review of SCS safety practices after school shooting

Ray pointed to the Peace Force, an idea he introduced during a business meeting two years ago, in his discussions about the agreement with the sheriff's office, noting he "still think(s) the Peace Force is the right approach."

The vote Tuesday was the first vote to occur on an MOU with the office since 2019 for the 2019-20 school year, but sheriff's deputies have been in the school the entire time.

“In the wake of the pandemic and school closures, a MOU was not renewed for the 2020-21 school year,” the district said in late July. “When the District decided to reopen, we requested the Shelby County Sheriff's Office (SCSO) to have a presence in our schools and they agreed to continue their service. The District plans to bring a MOU back to the school board soon.”

While a state statute discusses formalized agreements between law enforcement agencies and school districts, the statute only applies to off-duty law enforcement working at schools. SCS has said the statute doesn't apply because they don't employ off-duty deputies in school buildings.

The agreement for the 2021-22 school year includes a few new paragraphs, explained John Barker, a deputy superintendent for the district. That includes ensuring all of the deputies have received 56 hours of training, 16 more than mandatory requirements. Goals of the deputies are to include "disrupting the school to prison pipeline" and use "education, mentoring, and enforcement" to create "safer and drug-free schools."

Board member Stephanie Love, who has been critical of the agreement, asked why more wasn't included in the MOU to reflect the months of discussions held among the district, students and community.

"It would have been so simple to include that in the MOU, the same way we include the Tennessee code. We could have simply included the policy. We could have simply included some of the ways that we're going to make sure that our students are not having a negative impact with law enforcement," Love said, adding she wanted the document to reflect the ongoing conversations in more ways than just the increased training.

"So from the outside looking in, one would think that everyone has wasted their time. Because it's just a simple MOU," she said. "Why couldn't all of that have been included?"

Ultimately, she voted to approve the agreement after Kevin Woods suggested a unanimously approved amendment that deputies should follow board policy.

The amendment alludes to a policy Ray pointed to in response to community allegations that deputies interrogate students without parents knowing.

The board policy stipulates that students can be interrogated by officers without parental consent but that school personnel must at least attempt to notify parents. In some cases parents are not given warning, and in the cases of arrest warrants, for instance, parents are only notified after the order has been served, according to policy.

Federal stimulus-funded school building upgrades, closure among additional meeting business

In other business Tuesday, the board voted to approve millions of dollars in HVAC renovations, paving projects and school classroom additions, as part of the federal stimulus-financed Reimagine 901 plan announced in the spring.

More: SCS proposes building 5 schools, closing about 15, adding on to 13. Here are details

The district has been having community meetings with schools impacted. Several public commenters were teachers, parents and students of Shady Grove Elementary School, which is set to close in May 2022.

"It’s been a home to me," said Erin Panley, a teacher at the school.

The board also heard the first reading of a policy that would add Juneteenth to its list of paid holidays for most employees.

Laura Testino covers education and children's issues for the Commercial Appeal. Reach her at laura.testino@commercialappeal.com or 901-512-3763. Find her on Twitter: @LDTestino

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Effort to pull Shelby County Sheriff's deputies from Memphis schools fails