Photo via Milwaukee Teachers' Education Association - Facebook
Amena Jones - MPS Board Meeting (Jan. 20, 2026)
Riverside University High School student Amena Jones speaks out against SROs in schools at an MPS Board Meeting (Jan. 20, 2026)
Students from Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) seek better accountability and transparency from school resource officers (SROs). An effort led by Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) successfully got a resolution passed with the school board arranging for better SRO protocols and policies in order to keep MPS students as safe as possible.
Introduced by school board president Missy Zombor, the resolution calls for clearly defined roles and responsibilities of schools and SROs with regards to school behavior, and for more regular data reporting to the board and public. It also requests limited SRO intervention in disciplinary matters, limited law enforcement access to student records, the banning of strip searches, that SROs not interrupt classroom instruction, annual evaluations of SROs, the implementation of a complaint process with the Fire & Police Commission and other provisions.
While drafting the resolution, Zombor had met with students to hear about day-to-day issues with SROs they had or observed. She also consulted Krissie Fung of the Milwaukee Fire & Police Commission as well as Amanda Markwae of the ACLU of Wisconsin. “We want students to know their rights when they interact with SROs,” Zombor states. “Right now, that process isn’t well-known.”
State Mandate
SROs had previously been in MPS prior to 2020, but in the summer of that year, the school district terminated its contract with Milwaukee Police Department (MPD). However, the city required SROs return to MPS as part of Act 12, passed in 2024, which mandates at least 25 SROs be present in schools.
Elijah Shorts and Payton Bone are both MPS students as well as YES activists. Since SROs reappeared in schools, Bone describes having seen students be tased and crowds pepper sprayed. “It got really bad really quick,” she says. “Pepper spraying in a room with no windows is really bad.”
Shorts shares his own experience with SROs, “When a fight is happening, they don’t even bother trying to separate—they just automatically use a taser or pepper spray. They only get 40 hours of training, and that’s not enough time for being with high school kids.”
The students contend that if SROs are required, they should at least have specific guidelines where the same rules that apply to police outside of schools apply inside them as well. “It was a long process, but it was definitely worth it,” Bone remarks.
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Unnecessary Escalations?
Zombor recalls seeing police reports where incidents starting as behavioral issues had unnecessarily escalated on account of SRO involvement. “Students will get citations, and we know a lot of our families are one car accident away from bankruptcy,” she notes. “It’s not an easy ask of families to pay a $300 fine.”
With better guidelines and data, MPS can keep track of any disproportionalities happening with regards to SROs and school behavior. Zombor continues, “If we don’t know what’s wrong, we can’t fix it. And if we don’t put these clear guidelines in place, what’s going to happen is schools will use SROs as a default for every behavior issue instead of only severe issues.”
“We have to see that what passes abides by the rules,” Shorts says. “If this abides, the next thing is trying to get MPS to get ICE out of schools.”
Zombor affirms, “I’m really appreciative of the students coming out, advocating for their rights and making change.”
