Ohio district that removed school resource officers saw more than 5,000 ‘major incidents’ in fall 2022: report

A school district in Ohio saw thousands of “major incidents” such as fights, assaults and sexual or gun-related offenses that required help from external agencies such as police during the first three months of this school year. The same district ended its school resource officer program two years earlier.

Columbus City Schools, which is the state’s largest with approximately 47,000 students, logged 3,389 fights and threats, including 1,128 physical assaults, 188 sexual misconduct incidents and 163 occurrences of vandalism, from Aug. 29 to Nov. 30, according to public records obtained by the Columbus Dispatch.

Records also indicated 16 incidents of false alarms and bomb threats, 15 incidents of arson and explosives and seven incidents of alcoholic beverage use, possession or sale.

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A spokesperson for Columbus City Schools explained to the outlet that the numbers could be skewed by the fact that one fight could be logged multiple times in the district’s system during the disciplinary process.

“I don’t know if that number is totally accurate if you are looking at just fights and threats,” spokesperson Jacqueline Bryant said. “One fight could have had multiple entries, so the system doesn’t break it down as just one [fight]. … It’s not just counted as one [fight].”

By comparison, the school district recorded 127 fights, 111 assault incidents and 56 reports of guns found at the schools from January 2019 to June 2022, though many students were remote throughout some of that time, according to WBNS 10 News.

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The school district allowed its contract with the Columbus Division of Police that provided school resource officers to expire in June 2020 as protests and calls for police reform swept the country in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The district now employs 171 safety and security staff members who are not armed, the outlet reported. The district is slated to install 20 metal detection systems in high schools later this year at a cost of more than $3 million.

Chris Baker, who serves as the Columbus City Schools safety and security director, said the district continues “to partner with the Columbus Police Department.”

“We have a good relationship. … they respond when we need them,” he said.