New faculty police deal beneath overview in South San Francisco | Native Information

South San Francisco education and city officials are currently working on terms of an agreement that sets out rules and expectations for police officers who work as liaison officers on the school premises.

Formative discussions on the matter took place on Tuesday, June 8th, during a subcommittee meeting between members of the South San Francisco City Council and the South San Francisco Unified School District.

No decision has been made as the administrators of each agency are refining specific details in hopes of ultimately reaching an agreement that both sides find suitable for adoption. But the effort to pass a Memorandum of Understanding marks a more formal approach to the program, which was criticized by the community over the past year.

“This is an important conversation and I’m glad we’re talking about it,” said Vice Mayor Mark Nagales, who applauded staff from both agencies working on the initiative and community members for the exchange of views.

The discussion came after a decision by school district officials in March to maintain the order to place two police officers on the local campus, despite calls from social justice advocates to terminate the program.

According to the decision, school officials agreed to negotiate a letter of intent that defines the roles and responsibilities of officials on the district campus. The signed document will clarify the ambiguity left by an oral agreement between the two agencies that formed the program three decades ago.

Police Chief Jeff Azzopardi, who is working with school district administrations to create the memorandum, said he expected the formalized agreement to require new approaches from educators and police.

“Both sides need to change the way we do this,” he said.

To that end, the memorandum sets the boundaries for officials investigating potential crime or danger on school premises. It requires officials to contact administrators before conducting searches and prohibits students being interviewed without a parent or guardian being present.

Additionally, the proposed arrangement seeks to discourage students from being arrested at school, requiring that school management be consulted prior to arrest and that parents or guardians be notified.

It also aims to distinguish between school discipline issues that are appropriate for district staff to resolve and potential criminal incidents that require police intervention.

For his part, Azzopardi said the new regulations could require police officers to change their approach to responding to problems in schools. But similarly, he suggested that school officials reconsider their expectations about the frequency with which officials are called onto campus.

“We can only go so far from our side,” said Azzopardi, who noted that there have only been two incidents in the past two years of someone leaving a campus in handcuffs – one as a student and the other as a teacher.

Police are funding the program and city officials said they intend to continue funding the program. However, if school officials determine that special training is needed to better equip officials to deal with students, the agreement shifts that financial obligation to the county.

Such a proposal angered members of Change SSF, a progressive political action group that strongly opposed the school officers program, fearing it would power the school-to-prison pipeline and allow the police to change to monitor students.

Instead of putting additional financial burdens on a district, which often demands higher teacher salaries, SSF officials called on Change to terminate the program and reallocate these resources to other student care services.

City Manager Mike Futrell said officials were still required to fund the program and training officers, but added the term to refer to special training funding to help protect the city financially.

“We don’t want the district to come up with a long list of training courses and we expect the city to pay for it,” he said.

Aware that more work is needed on the proposal, officials recognized the foundations in place and hoped that a formal agreement could be reached before the start of school in August.

“This is a starting point,” said Daina Lujan, president of the school board.

In other areas, the two sides suggested renaming the community learning center in South San Francisco after former congregation member Gene Mullin. Mullin, who died in April, was a teacher in the district for 30 years and a former mayor and councilor.

Mayor Mark Addiego praised the proposal, noting that renaming the center, which offers programs that benefit both the city and the school district, would properly commemorate the educators and city officials.

“He was a special bridge between education and government,” said Addiego.