When Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger declined to remove police officers from the city’s schools, he cited a letter from district leaders expressing “unified support” for keeping the officers.
But outgoing Superintendent Yaw Obeng, who starts a new job as the superintendent of a Kansas City school district on July 1, said he was in Missouri when the letter went out and wasn’t consulted about it.
“I know it comes from the superintendent district email – I did not sign any document to that effect,” he said.
Obeng added that, had he been around, he would have asked his staff to review the contract between the school district and the police department before making a recommendation to the school board.
“And then the board would have a full conversation before making any sort of recommendations in terms of taking action,” he said.
At the top of the school board’s Tuesday meeting, Clare Wool, chair of the board apologized for authorizing the letter without the full approval of the board. She said she collaborated on writing the letter.
“I acknowledge that the board did not review or discuss this before the statement was published,” Wool said. “I apologize for signing on behalf of the board.”
Wool said her intent was guided by a memorandum of understanding that was signed in 2015 between the district and Burlington Police.
“In my error, I did not include the board on support on that work that was supported by prior boards,” she said. “It is my goal as always as chair to inform the board and we’ll discuss SROs later in the meeting.”
The push to remove police officers from the schools is part of the demands of the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, which is also calling for a 30% reduction in uniformed officers and the firing of Officers Jason Bellavance, Cory Campbell and Joe Corrow, all of whom are named in police brutality lawsuits filed by black men.
The alliance’s demands, which include calling for funds from the department to be re-allocated to programs that uplift communities of color, have been echoed by hundreds of residents who have called into city meetings in the past two weeks. More than 1,000 people signed up to speak at Monday night’s City Council meeting, which was continued to Tuesday.
Nearly all of the callers specifically mentioned the alliance’s demands and stated they believe officers should be removed from the district’s schools.
Weinberger does not support removing the two officers assigned to the city’s middle and high schools, and pointed to the letter as part of his explanation for why his proposed budget keeps officers in schools. The mayor outlined his budget during a press conference Monday.
Weinberger said that while he believes removing school resource officers (SROs) from schools is a good reform in many parts of the country, he believes the practices in Burlington are different.
“We heard directly from the Burlington School District, both the superintendent, and principal of the high school, with other principals and the head of their racial equity office, we heard from them, very strongly, in writing … that they support the continuation of the SRO programs, and they are quite concerned about the possibility of those programs being precipitously eliminated,” he said during a press conference Monday where he outlined his budget.
The letter, dated June 9, lists Obeng’s typed name at the bottom and includes his letterhead at the top.
At the bottom of the letter are also the names of Henri Sparks, the district’s director of equity; Clare Wool, the chair of the school board; Noel Green, the principal of Burlington High School; Mattie Scheidt, the principal of Hunt Middle School; Megan McDonough, the principal of Edmunds Middle School; and Stephanie Phillips, the district’s executive director of teaching and learning.
Sparks, in an interview with a VTDigger reporter last week, said he supported keeping police in schools, particularly because the district had an agreement with the department that kept SROs out of run-of-the-mill disciplinary matters.
“Me being black, I definitely understand the tension between not just SROs, but police and black people across the country. And here in Vermont, I think we have an opportunity of really setting a different model and building relationships with the police that can be beneficial and healthy for students,” Sparks said.
“Our work with the Burlington Police Department, specifically the School Resource Officer program, creates a partnership that supports our work to achieve this goal of safety and well-being for our students,” the letter states. “The School Resource Officers are valued contributors to our school community and we respectfully request that the city continue to fund and assign Burlington Police Department officers to this important duty.”
The letter states that the district’s memorandum of understanding with the department was “purposely developed to avoid negative interactions between students and police and it has achieved this goal and other goals.”
“The School Resource Officer program in the Burlington School District has been one of mutual respect and has provided the School Resource Officers an opportunity to build meaningful relationships with students and families,” the letter says.
Jean Waltz, a school board member from the Old North End, in an interview before Tuesday’s board meeting, would not say directly whether or not she, or the wider board, were consulted about the letter before it was sent to Weinberger.
“There was a miscommunication that has since been cleared up,” she said. “That’s pretty much what happened.”
“I want the focus to not be taken away from this overall effort in our larger community. It should not be about individual people that, whatever, forgot to CC somebody on an email or something really trite like that,” she added.
Waltz, who co-chairs the board’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subcommittee, said she had recently put the use of SROs on the committee’s next agenda. Waltz said she understood research indicated major downsides to having a police presence in schools, but also that many Burlington district leaders supported keeping the officers in place.
“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity to review the MOU. I want to make a data-driven decision about it. And I think it’s time that we take a look,” she said.
Sawyer Loftus contributed reporting.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated school board chair Claire Wool wrote the letter supporting SRO’s. She collaborated on the letter.
