Kingston SRO report: committee changes, training, logs and discipline counts detailed

The Kingston City School District on Dec. 11 presented an expanded SRO report that described the program’s purpose, recent contract changes, training participation and logs of daily interactions with students and the school community.

Mister Parker, who delivered the update for the district, said the SRO role is “a law enforcement officer carefully selected and specifically trained to work collaboratively in [the] school community” and distinguished that SROs are not security guards, monitors or teachers. He said the program’s goals include promoting school safety, maintaining a positive climate and participating in information-sharing to support the districtwide safety plan.

The board heard that a 2020 SRO committee revised the contract and operational expectations. Changes listed by Parker included a more relaxed uniform policy, a streamlined complaint process, an agreement that no students should be arrested on campus, and a commitment to ongoing professional development. Parker said that in the current year there were three appearance tickets issued and one arrest on campus; the arrested person was a contractor found to have an extraditable felony warrant after being identified at the site.

Parker presented logs and counts: district SRO logs show about 911 total interactions since March 2024, though many entries were coded as “other” because of choices of keywords when staff logged encounters. Of those interactions, Parker said roughly 50 were recorded as more detailed incidents needing further involvement or investigation. He listed the most common incident types prompting SRO involvement: self-harm and mental-health concerns, possession/distribution of explicit content (cyber incidents), theft and misunderstandings, threat assessment work, medical emergencies, suspected substance use, vandalism and bullying or physical altercations.

On discipline incidents where law enforcement was involved, Parker reported 109 incidents in the 2023–24 school year, 188 incidents in 2022–23 and 164 incidents in 2021–22. He provided a basic demographic breakdown for the 109 incidents in 2023–24 (percentages by race and special-education status were presented by the district). Parker said that of the 109 incidents this year, 59 involved general-education students; small counts were reported for students with 504 plans and IEPs.

Board members asked several follow-up questions. Miss Jordan requested clarification on how many logged interactions represented unique students versus repeat contacts; Parker said the logs count interactions rather than unique students and agreed that disaggregating by student would be useful. Board members also asked whether SROs had completed recent training; Parker said nearly all district SROs had attended a week-long New York State Safety Summit and other professional development. Parker acknowledged that communication of the streamlined complaint process to families could be improved and said the district would revisit placement of the information on school websites.

Several trustees praised the SROs’ responsiveness and the district’s improvements since forming the SRO committee. Trustees asked for additional data analysis going forward, including clearer separation of recurring incidents from unique students and demographic ratios relative to school population to detect potential disproportionality.

The board did not take a formal vote on program changes during the meeting; Parker said the contract revisions and training expectations were already implemented as part of the 2020 committee work and subsequent renewals.