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Norfolk officials present SRO evaluation; board hears mixed views from students and members
Summary
District staff reported an 89% approval rating in a climate survey of six schools with School Resource Officers; presenters said SROs are trained and overseen under an MOU and Virginia code, while some board members and students urged more mental‑health supports and requested clearer disaggregated student feedback.
The Norfolk Public Schools board discussed results of an evaluation of the School Resource Officer (SRO) program and next steps for the memoranda of understanding that govern SRO assignments.
Speaker 11 presented an evaluation based on discipline data from Synergy, the current MOU, and a school climate survey at six schools that currently have full‑time SROs: Booker T. Washington High School, Granby High School, Lake Taylor High School, Maury High School, Norview High School and Ruffner. "Across every school that we evaluated, there was consistent strengths in the S.R.O. program," he said, noting visibility, accessibility and professionalism as top strengths and reporting an approval rating of about 89% among survey respondents with roughly 6% disapproving.
The presenter said SRO training includes juvenile and mental‑health components and that the MOU requires that newly assigned SROs complete a Department of Criminal Justice Services SRO program within six months. He also said SROs focus on criminal activity and are not the primary actors in routine student discipline; regular feedback loops exist between SRO units, school administrators and the presented oversight structure.
During Q&A, board members pressed for clarity about the survey sample and requested separate tallies for students, staff and principals; Speaker 11 said the principal responses were separated but staff and students were surveyed in a combined, blind instrument and that average responses were roughly 40–50 participants per school for the climate survey. Several members said they want more detailed student perspectives, and students at the meeting offered mixed views: one student from Norview said officers "definitely make me feel more safe," while other students said widespread security can feel "prison‑like" and stressed the importance of more mental‑health supports.
Administrators said staffing constraints at the Norfolk Police Department limit expansion of SRO coverage and that the district is exploring partnerships with the Norfolk Sheriff's Office. District staff also described other security staffing: the district employs 69 full‑time school security officers (SSOs) and uses a placement matrix that accounts for student body size, building entrances and discipline incident types when allocating SSOs.
Board members asked for two‑year MOU reviews and for survey reporting that disaggregates respondents by group. The presentation closed with administrators saying they would continue to meet with police leadership and use the MOU’s review cycle to address operational questions.
