Judge: City avoids fines with police officers now working in 11 MPS schools

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) — A judge ruled Monday the City of Milwaukee will avoid daily fines as for the first time in years, police officers returned to nearly a dozen Milwaukee Public Schools buildings.

The officers' assignments to MPS schools came nearly 15 months after those placements were supposed to happen under state law. That fact wasn't lost on Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski, but on Monday he vacated a previous order that found the city in contempt of court and threatened to fine Milwaukee $1,000 per day.

Court filings submitted Monday showed 25 officers began working Monday in 11 MPS high schools:

• Riverside University High School
• Bradley Technology and Trade
• North Division High School
• Milwaukee High School of the Arts
• Hamilton High School
• Washington High School
• Vincent High School
• Madison High School
• Rufus King High School
• Obama School of Career and Technical Education
• Milwaukee Marshall High School

For months, the city and school district squabbled over who would pay the officers' salaries. In a harshly worded ruling last month, Borowski ordered MPS and the city to each cover 50% of the costs associated with hiring and training 25 school resource officers.

At Monday's hearing, Borowski acknowledged receiving a list of 38 Milwaukee police officers who last week completed training held by instructors from the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO).

The judge ruled the list of officers and school assignments satisfied his previous order.

"It's unfortunate this case had to be filed, but it's resolved," Borowski said. "And I sincerely hope that MPS now moves on to fixing and dealing with other challenges that they have."

The list of officers was sealed from the public. MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough told reporters after the hearing 25 officers will be deployed across the district full-time, the minimum number set by state law.

Twenty-two of those officers will break down into pairs assigned to each of the 11 designated high schools. The other three officers will move around the district as a group, serving various MPS high schools. MPD officials said training costs about $13,000.

"It really is the most unique assignment in law enforcement," said Mo Canady, NASRO's executive director.

Charlene Abughrin, an MPS parent who brought the lawsuit, said she supported the structure of how officers were deployed. However, she took issue with the list of schools where officers were assigned.

"I like the pairs of officers," Abughrin said. "I'm not entirely satisfied at the schools that they placed them at because there are some schools with greater needs, that have greater violence."

Abughrin said she specifically believed officers should be placed at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning, which according to MPS' website, emphasizes a "family/team approach to education in which each student is placed with the most appropriate core teacher or teachers."

She also wanted officers placed at the Milwaukee School of Languages, where her son is a student and where she said he'd previously been assaulted.

Thirty-one Milwaukee police officers and seven supervising officers completed SRO training, according to court documents.

"We had attendees that were really, truly engaged in the class, seemed to really want to be there," Canady said.

Canaday described the training as a 40-hour basic SRO course, covering topics like adolescent brain development, special needs, implicit bias, and school law.

"When you go to work in a school environment, the majority of those citizens are adolescents, and you must be carefully trained, specifically trained how to work in that environment," Canady explained.

Monday was Dr. Brenda Cassellius' first school day as MPS' new superintendent. Cassellius said she supported the NASRO training program.

"I think that's really good, important for them to understand youth healthy development and restorative justice practices, and positive behavior practices," she said.

"We have complied with the order with the city, and we continue to monitor that situation. I know there's a required evaluation to be done, and we'll get back to that, so we'll tweak it as we need to," she said. "But, so far, so good."

Although 38 officers were trained, Dr. Cassellius said only 25 will remain in place for now, but she added that could change as the district evaluates the impact to schools.

Borowski warned in his ruling that his order to dismiss the lawsuit will include a stipulation that if he or the plaintiff learns MPS has removed or drawn down the number of officers in the schools, the case will reopen in his court.

"There's a stipulation in order for dismissal based on the eventual- now, compliance with the court's prior order or orders," he said. "But it would be subject to a motion to reopen in front of me if something falls apart."