MILWAUKEE — A judge on Thursday held the City of Milwaukee in contempt of court for its failure to provide student resource officers (SROs) in Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS).
Judge David Borowski said the city will be fined $1,000 each day it does not provide SROs, beginning Feb. 27. The judge placed a stay on the sanction until March 15.
The order is the result of a Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty lawsuit filed last year on behalf of the mother of an MPS student. The lawsuit claimed the district violated a state law requiring SROs in Milwaukee schools starting Jan. 1, 2024.
However, the push for school resource officers to return to Milwaukee Public Schools isn't welcomed by everyone.
Watch: Community leader warns SROs could cause tension within MPS schools
In 2020, hundreds marched calling for an end to the contract between MPS and the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) amid Black Lives Matter protests and movements to "defund the police."
"I, as a parent, do not want my child in an unsafe environment with people who have terrorized the community," said Shavonda Sisson, an MPS parent, in June 2020.
"Police do not make schools safe," said Lorraine Malcoe, another MPS parent, in June 2020.
The message was clear from hundreds of parents less than five years ago, but the debate over whether police officers belong in school buildings goes back even further.
"I was in the middle of it," said Wendell Harris, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) Wisconsin Chapter. "Right at the beginning, we had an idea of what we wanted from a police officer, and that all changed."
In 2008, Harris said it was partially his idea to bring the first SROs to MPS. It was an idea inspired by one of his friends who worked at a suburban police department.
"His attitude, he's just a great guy. He understood that the children he was working with didn't need an occupier; they needed somebody they could respect. And that's what he did—he respected his students, and they gave him respect," said Harris.
Harris, a former MPS Board director, hoped to bring in positive role models at the time but noticed that without the proper training and mindsets, tension built.
"When I saw the attitudes start to shift in the police officers that we brought into our buildings, as opposed to what we bargained for initially, I saw the conflict rise in the building with those officers and our children," he said.
By 2016, police officers were no longer in schools, but there were still a handful of SROs who worked near schools.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education found that Black students at MPS schools received harsher discipline than white students. MPS agreed to work with federal leaders to end that discipline disparity.
"I saw the quality of officers change to something we could not, and would not, support if we knew it was going to come to that," said Harris.
In 2020, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, the school board voted to end the district's nearly $500,000 per year contract with the police department.
But now, because of a 2023 state law, officers are being ordered back to schools.
"Being a former school board director, I would be very upset to be caught up in this at this point," said Harris, as he follows the latest developments from the judge over this ongoing case.
Harris said both the city and the district need to be intentional in order to avoid new disparities.
"The people that put on the badge and the gun, that we put in the school building, those people have to be constantly given training and reminded of where they'll be working and what we want from them. And that is, if they're in the building, they will try to maintain peace and order by showing love and care for our children, as opposed to the attitude that you're just a knucklehead and that's all you're going to be," said Harris.
A call for protection and peace from a man hoping SROs can avoid adding tension and conflict.
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