This post originally appeared at https://www.badgerinstitute.org/mps-stiff-arms-cops-in-schools-as-allegations-of-robbery-and-assault-mount/

Former superintendent criticizes suggestion that police are evil

In the 2023-24 school year, after Milwaukee officials agreed to put police officers back into local high schools — something that still hasn’t happened — schools called police 1,245 times for help with allegations of everything from armed robbery to sexual assault to felony theft.

It was way back in June 2023 that Milwaukee leaders reached a deal with legislators allowing both the city and the county to raise sales taxes in exchange for putting officers back in crime-ridden Milwaukee Public Schools by Jan. 1, 2024.

Throughout the 2023-24 school year, high school officials made an average of 32.7 calls a week, or 6.9 calls a day, to police, according to Milwaukee Police Department data released to the Badger Institute this week after an open records request.

Officers responded to 648 calls from school administrators in the spring semester that ended last June, an 8.5% increase over the 597 calls for service in the fall semester of 2023.

The spring semester calls were down 16.7% from a recent high of 778 in the fall of 2022, but in line with the 642 calls made in the spring of 2022 and the 668 calls made in the fall of 2021.

There is no reason other than politics that officers are not already back in schools or that they were ever removed in the first place, former MPS superintendent Bill Andrekopoulos said.

By resisting resource officers and making “restorative justice” rather than student safety the priority, the school board “is sending a message to the public and to the children that police officers are evil, bad and to be feared,” Andrekopoulos told the Badger Institute this week.

“That progressive notion is old-fashioned, out of date. People want public safety. People are fed up,” he said.

In his eight years as superintendent ending in 2010, Andrekopoulos helped put officers in high schools by sitting down with Milwaukee Police administrators and cooperating on how the system would work.

“We agreed to split the costs. We had a good working relationship because we both had an interest in it working the way it was supposed to,” he said. “There are school districts all over the country putting officers back in schools. Why does MPS think it is above all that?”

Through a formal records request, the Badger Institute also was able to determine the district spent at least $15,000 to send school officials on three fact-gathering trips in October, November and December 2023 to schools in Atlanta and Macon, Georgia, and in Washington, D.C.

Nine school officials, including former Superintendent Keith Posley and Instructional Leadership Director Miguel Sanchez, were joined on two of the trips by Steve Lubar, executive director of the Administrators and Supervisors Council, representing MPS principals, assistant principals, and supervisors.

Police Chief Jeffrey Norman and Assistant Chief Steven Johnson were part of the group that went to Atlanta and Macon on Nov. 30-Dec. 1, according to the documents. But expenses for Lubar, Norman and Johnson were not paid by the district, the documents said. 

Each of the trips included visits to various high schools and elementary schools and their public safety command centers, and the command and dispatch centers for each of those police districts, according to the documents.  

Details of the trips or what was gleaned from them have not been shared with parents or students.

Instead, the district has been gathering complaints, as it did during its Accountability, Finance and Personnel Committee meeting Oct. 21, from faculty, students and at least one state Assembly member. Rep. Ryan Clancy, D-Milwaukee, urged the school district to ignore the Legislature’s mandate.

State Sen. John Jagler, chair of the Senate’s Education Committee, told the Badger Institute last week the board’s truculence would not be forgotten by the Legislature in its next session.

Like Jagler, R-Watertown, Andrekopoulos acknowledged there is nothing written into the sales tax agreement that can compel MPS to restore the resource officers. What it will take, he said, is a pendulum swing to a Republican governor who can assume state authority over the school district.

Andrekopoulos is on record  calling for the appointment of a “special master” to create a state advisory panel to restructure the district. A plan could give oversight of the district to the mayor of Milwaukee, who could appoint a board made up of community stakeholders.

“I think MPS as it exists has run its course,” Andrekopoulos said, “with the public and the Legislature. There is no political will. MPS is continually protecting the status quo.”

The Legislature made the requirement part of a deal that allowed the City of Milwaukee to levy a 2% sales and use tax that is estimated to generate $184 million a year for the city and Milwaukee County.

The MPS board voted to remove resource officers from the schools in 2016 and voted again in 2020 to prohibit the Milwaukee Police Department from regularly patrolling around the schools.

MPS did not respond to an email asking for comment.

Mark Lisheron is the Managing Editor of the Badger Institute.

Any use or reproduction of Badger Institute articles or photographs requires prior written permission. To request permission to post articles on a website or print copies for distribution, contact Badger Institute President Mike Nichols at mike@badgerinstitute.org or 262-389-8239.

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