School Resource Officers and daily police patrols of Portland Public School perimeters are urgently needed to ensure student, teacher, and staff safety. Portlanders across the city are victims of escalating crime, and now our children are caught in the crossfire. A trained daily security presence, along with existing supports, would act as a criminal deterrent while keeping our communities safe from gun violence and illicit drugs.

In six months there have been five separate instances of shootings outside PPS schools. Four of the shootings involved students injured - at Jefferson High School in October and November, at Cleveland High School in December, in the parking lot of Franklin High School during a January PIL basketball game, and March 9th during school there was another shooting a block from Franklin. This violence doesn’t discriminate. All students were affected when a city-wide school bomb threat disrupted the entire district in December. Sadly, two McDaniel students died in March 2022 and a Franklin student died in February 2023 from Fentanyl overdoses, and on September 28th, a man was arrested selling drugs to minors outside Cleveland High School.

Our children are anxiety ridden, already behind from a pandemic spent online and forced to cower in classrooms experiencing lock-down drills instead of learning. Our teachers and staff are experiencing undue stress and tasks beyond what is expected to educate our students. Our communities are unsafe.

Removing school resource officers was part of a knee-jerk reaction to the larger 'defund the police' movement in Portland and across the nation. It was a mistake. It was a political decision made without firm data to suggest that a police presence somehow made students, teachers and school buildings less safe. PPS Counselors and Youth Violence Prevention & Response Managers hired since the pandemic are necessary, however, they do not take the place of trained security officers. 
 
This is an all-hands on deck moment that requires city leaders, school leaders, law enforcement, the DA, and state leaders to align resources and a commitment to keep our children, schools and neighborhoods safe before another child falls victim to Portland's inaction!

Please sign the petition if you live in Portland, Oregon. If we stand together we can't be ignored. #ReinstateSROs #PortlandPublicSchools #PPSSafety