Another Local Representative Joins Call for Special Session to Fix School Resource Officer Issue

(KNSI) — Sartell area Representative Tim O’Driscoll (R — 13B) is among the growing crowd of lawmakers asking the governor to call a special session to deal with the school resource officer issue.

As part of the new education bill, student discipline laws were changed, preventing a school resource officer from placing students in the prone position or using “comprehensive restraint on the head, neck and across most of the torso.”

The Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association sent a letter to Governor Tim Walz saying the measure prevents officers from using common tools to break up physical altercations. Police departments across the state say the language is too ambiguous, opening SROs up to civil litigation or criminal prosecution. Education Commissioner Willie Jett asked Attorney General Keith Ellison to clarify the language, but departments said that didn’t help.

Ellison said the force used must be reasonable, but that only confused SROs because he didn’t specify what reasonable was, how it was determined and who determines it.

Forty-four Democrats have gone on record saying they are not interested in a special session to remedy the issue and to leave the law alone. Democratic Governor Tim Walz also said previously he wasn’t going to entertain the idea, either, but walked that back. If no special session is called, it won’t be until the Legislature gavels in for the 2024 session in February before changes can be made. House Minority Leader Representative Lisa Demuth (R – 13A) said that’s too long to wait.

O’Driscoll agrees and said he is troubled that far too many in the majority party want to ignore this problem. “Our schools should be safe havens where students can learn and educators can teach without fear. We have heard plenty of horror stories of student violence in schools, including an incident in Mankato last week that occurred without an SRO present, and we should be doing all we can to prioritize school safety.”

O’Driscoll added only a handful in the majority party would need to join Republicans in addressing law enforcement’s concerns with the new law and bring SROs back to the schools that have lost them.

Democrats hold a one seat majority in the Senate, with Senator Aric Putnam (D – St. Cloud) saying he would work across the aisle to do something that’s “definitive to bide us over until we get back in February. If that’s calling a special session to fix it now. If it’s some other kind of order or some other kind of statement. Those things are all things that we can do, but we have to do something because simply saying it’s not a problem is not a solution.”

Locally, St. Cloud and St. Joseph have severed Joint Powers Agreements, removing SROs from buildings until the issue is fixed.

The Sauk Rapids City Council recently voted 3-2 to keep the SROs in place. Others who have done the same are Holdingford, Kimball, Melrose and Sartell.

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