Members of the Seymour Board of Education said Tuesday they were as surprised as the public to find out there is no police presence within the Seymour School District this year.
School started last week in Seymour, with no police presence in the morning during drop off at the town’s four schools or during afternoon dismissals. The school district also lacks an officer assigned to the school district, such as a school resource officer.
It’s a change from last year, when officers were a regular presence at schools after the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
During the public comment period of Tuesday’s school board meeting, eight people said Seymour needs a police presence of some kind in the schools, such as a school resource officer (often to referred to as a “SRO”).
Several people mentioned police are especially important in schools in the wake of Sandy Hook.
Parents said a police presence is needed, regardless of the approximately $80,000 recently spent on security upgrades in the school district. At least two of Wednesday’s speakers were employed as police officers, including one who works in Bridgeport.
Parent Mike Ouellete said that while the security upgrades are commendable, they pay for things such as cameras and other hardware. Hardware can’t compete with the human interaction a school resource officer would bring to the school buildings.
“A security camera can’t detect, deter, inform or intervene,” Ouellete said. “All it’s there for is to collect evidence.”
A school resource officer could talk to kids, gather information and identify potential problems, Ouellete said.
Parent Chris Kick agreed.
“They (school resource officers) can build relationships,” he said.
Parents said an officer could concentrate on rooting out drugs and preventing bullying.
Michael Jasmin, a Seymour police officer who was previously assigned to the schools, told the school board the lack of an officer is “really doing a disservice to the kids in this town.”
Former First Selectman Paul Roy said the police department has enough manpower to make it happen.
However, a Seymour police department spokesman said the department doesn’t have the manpower — not to mention the funding — needed to provide a school resource officer.
The background on school resource officers within the school district nuanced, perhaps a bit convoluted.
In April, the school board said they didn’t want the town to spend $377,000 to hire four school resource officers.
Instead, the board wanted to wait to see what recommendations came from a task force set up by the town to review school security in the wake of Sandy Hook.
Then, in a non-binding referendum last year, residents rejected a question about adding four school resources officers to the four public school buildings.
But Yashu Putorti, chairman of the school board, said Wednesday that school district officials thought they would have a single school resource officer this year. He based that on previous budget discussions with Seymour Police Chief Michael Metzler.
“As far as we knew, that was happening. We did not know until last week that it wasn’t going to be happening,” Purorti said.
It is important to note that while parents were complaining to the school board, the school board would not pay for nor supervise a school resource officer or youth officer. It’s the jurisdiction of the administrators of the Seymour Police Department and the Seymour Board of Police Commissioners.
School board member Fred Stanek said he was “extremely upset” to learn last week of the lack of a police presence at Seymour schools.
School board member Ed Strumello said the board needs to make its case to the Board of Police Commissioners. The public also needs to show up, if it is something they want to see happen.
Putorti and several of his counterparts plan to talk about the issue with the Seymour Board of Police Commission at a public meeting scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday (Sept. 12) at the Seymour Police Department.
Police React
When asked to react to a perceived lack of communication among police and the school board, Lt. Paul Satkowski said the school safety committee did not recommend school resource officers as a way to bolster security within the schools. That decision was clear as early as July, Satkowski said.
(NOTE: The Seymour Police Chief said Sept. 12 that the school safety committee DID suggest school resource officers as an option)
In addition, the position was not funded in the police budget, which went into effect in July. Satkowski also pointed out the results of the referendum, where voters rejected the idea of paying for four school resource officers.
Money and a lack of public support aren’t the only reasons.
The department is down eight officers, Satkowski said, with five officers out on workers’ compensation and three new recruits being trained in the police academy.
A captain’s position on the administrative level is also vacant, Satkowski said. That makes assigning an officer exclusively to the schools that much more difficult, Satkowski said.
Last year the officers who were assigned to the school district were funded through overtime money, Satkowski said.
While the schools don’t have a dedicated officer, police still have a presence and go to the schools as part of normal patrols.
“Our officers are still out there. They are still patrolling. They are still maintaining contacts and are trying to be visible around the schools. But they still have the rest of the town to patrol, too,” Satkowski said. “We’re trying to do the best we can with the resources we currently have.”
In an e‑mail to the Valley Indy Thursday (Sept. 5), Chief Metzler said the school board was involved in the school security review, and was aware a school resource officer was not recommended.
“The superintendent, BOE chairman and the rest of the committee were clearly informed that without funding and manpower that the department could not provide an SRO,” Metzler said.
The chief said the issue would be examined again if the department returned to full strength — but the department is currently missing 25 percent of its staff, Metzler said.
“There were no guarantees presented. The practice of having officers present for the “bus duty” was no longer going to be provided. Our department is presently operating with 25 percent of the staff not available,” the chief said.
In an interview Wednesday, First Selectman Kurt Miller said if the school board wants a school resource officer, they are going through the proper channels. They need to talk to the town’s police commissioners.
When asked his thoughts on whether cops are needed at Seymour schools, Miller said the chances of a single school resource officer preventing something like a mass shooting are slim — but that the town has taken steps to ensure safety within the four school buildings.
“The value of a SRO that I see is interacting with the kids, getting to know them, having them learn a police officer is not a bad person and that a police officer is there to help,” Miller said. “Perhaps that would help with things like drugs or bullying of things like that.”
Miller pointed out his two young children attend Seymour schools. He feels they are safe, even without a school resource officer.
“We’ve done a good job fortifying, for lack of a better term, our schools,” Miller said. “We invested $80,000 and we think that took us to another level in protecting our kids.”
