Worcester's public high schools are empty now, but students could be back in a couple months and with them, the schools' resource officers.
WPS Safety Director Rob Pezzella says the program has been nothing but positive and arrests have gone down each year since the school resources officers [SROs] were installed.
"They have taught classes, they have mentored students and on a very, very rare basis, they have had to uphold order in the school due to a very aggressive assault or violent event,” Pezzella said.
A 19-page report from Massachusetts nonprofit Citizens for Juvenile Justice argues otherwise.
The group says police misuse of power against students is a problem in Massachusetts, there is no evidence police make schools safer, and having SROs increases arrests for low-level offenses.
They're findings also say, SROs disproportionately target students of color and students with disabilities and they hinder student achievement and mental health.
District 4 City Councilor Sarai Rivera said, “Right now in Worcester, that's a huge issue within our school system: the suspend rates, the disciplinary rates. We do not want to contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline."
Rivera says the SRO program in Worcester harms communities of color and is ineffective. She says the academic culture needs to move away from discipline and criminalization and funding needs to instead go to evidence-based programs and resources.
Rivera said, “Restorative justice, mindfulness, mediation, the addition of crisis teams, having adjustment counselors that can actually spend time, having guidance counselors that can actually help direct our children to proper resources so they can have academic success and not just be surviving, but thriving."
The nonprofit's report says in the 2015 to 2016 school year, Black and Latinx students made up 27 percent of the state's student population, but 64 percent of school arrests.
Pezzella says there are some cases where minority groups have a higher chance of being arrested, but they're working on it.
"We are addressing that, we're looking at that, along with of course the Worcester police and the city as a whole,” Pezzella said. “We have the Worcester Youth Violence plan, where we're trying to get more understanding of how we can improve relations to where those arrest statistics don't take place.”