Public Safety Employees, Lawmakers, Speak Out on New Restrictions Banning Certain Holds in School Discipline Guidance

(KNSI) — Public safety employees are speaking out against a provision in the education bill signed into law by Governor Tim Walz barring school resource officers from certain use of force techniques.

The law prevents putting students in the prone position, which subjects them to “comprehensive restraint on the head, neck and across most of the torso.”

Jeff Potts, executive director of the Minnesota Chiefs of Police Association, wrote a letter to the governor voicing his concerns saying, “Prohibiting the most basic measure of safely restraining and controlling the aggressor in a fight severely impacts the SRO’s ability to intervene, stop the altercation, and protect everyone’s safety,” Potts wrote.

House Minority Leader Representative Lisa Demuth of Cold Spring agreed with Potts and issued a statement against the provision, saying keeping students safe should always be a top priority, and the move will “severely undermine school officials in their ability and their duty to provide a safe learning environment for all their students and staff.”

The new law applies to all school employees, but Demuth argues, “the clear intention of this new law is to target law enforcement working as school resource officers and to dissuade local law enforcement from entering into public safety agreements with schools.”

One police chief in the Twin Cities says growing hostility towards police and lack of clarity in the law has some officers refusing school assignments.

Demuth says, “Governor Walz and Legislative Democrats should work with House Republicans to revise the law to restore common sense discipline and provide a more welcoming environment for our first responders who are willing and eager to help keep our students safe.”

The Department of Education says it will provide SROs and districts guidance and clarity in the law soon.

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