15 Months Late, MPD Sends Officers Into 11 High Schools

Charlene Abughrin (right) and WILL associate counsel Lauren Greuel after SRO hearing. Photo by Jeramey Jannene.

The first day of school for students was in September, but for the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) it was March 17.

Ending a high-profile, three-way standoff, the police department and city dispatched 25 officers into 11 Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) buildings Monday.

The deployment resolves a February contempt order that would have cost the city $1,000 per day and puts the city and school district into compliance with a January 2024 requirement, codified in state law, to return 25 officers to schools.

“Frankly, this only happened because of the immense pressure I put on the city,” said Judge David L. Borowski at a hearing Monday afternoon at the Milwaukee County Courthouse.

The MPS board eliminated the school resource officer program in 2020, but the adoption of Act 12, the city sales tax and local government funding bill, included the requirement to again station officers at schools.

Borowski, who oversaw a civil lawsuit from MPS parent Charlene Abughrin and the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, repeatedly chided the city through a series of hearings in recent months for failing to comply with the order. On Feb. 27, he issued a contempt order with a March 15 deadline for compliance.

“At the end of the day we shouldn’t have had to bring this lawsuit at all,” said WILL counsel Lauren Greuel.

Abughrin, after the hearing, said she is “very grateful” that officers are deployed. But raised concerns with where they are being sent.

“Others have pointed out, the police are in schools every single day,” said the judge, citing prior testimony about the thousands of calls for service. “The difference here is they’re not being called and pulled off of patrol duty or called and pull off an investigation or called and pulled off of other obligations. They’re actually going to be in the school.”

But only in some schools.

Officers, according to the city’s court filings, are deployed at 11 high schools: Bradley Technology and Trade High School, Alexander Hamilton High School, Rufus King International Schools, James Madison Academic Campus, Milwaukee Marshall High School, Milwaukee High School of the Arts, North Division High School, Barack Obama School of Career and Technical Education, Riverside University High School, Harold S. Vincent School of Agricultural Science, Washington High School of Information Technology.

The officers will work in pairs at the schools. After the hearing, MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough said there is one trio of officers that doesn’t, at this point, have an explicit school appointment. But the trio is being sent as a group to work at schools, said Hough, and was deployed to one of the 11 schools Monday.

The 11 school list includes the majority of the district’s high schools. But the district has more than 150 schools.

And Abughrin doesn’t believe officers were sent to the right schools, including her son’s: Milwaukee School of Languages, a combined middle and high school.

She said she supported the officers being in schools in pairs and she believed it would additionally take pressure off of teachers. One of the reasons the school board previously ended the program was a concern that it would create criminal justice system encounters for situations that should be handled by the district’s security staff.

Abughrin said she would also like to see officers assigned to Wisconsin Conservatory of Lifelong Learning. She described the school, which at least one of her six children attended, as a dumping ground for the district’s most troubled students.

She said she feels like the district and city have completed 85% of the requirement and wants to see follow through. “It’s a step in the right direction,” said Abughrin while standing outside the courtroom.

Abughrin said she did not believe the use of a trio of officers without an explicit assignment was in compliance with the law. She said she expected the district to find a “loophole” to get out of the state law.

In an affidavit, the city said 38 officers were trained. That includes 31 officers and seven supervisors. The training was a requirement of Act 12 and was conducted by the National Association of School Resource Officers. The training, according to the city, was completed between March 10 and 14. Borowski approved the city’s request to seal the list of officers.

“I appreciate that the city, with my nudging, moved rather quickly to get the training accomplished,” said Borowski.

Last Friday, Mayor Cavalier Johnson, said the Republican-controlled Legislature originally wanted an officer at every school. “I negotiated that number down,” said the mayor. “It’s not something we asked for, but it is something that is law and something that should have been done some time ago.”

During Monday’s hearing, MPS outside counsel Hanna Kolberg didn’t offer many comments and Borowski clearly approved. “You think you can sit this one out, watch from the sidelines? Good plan,” he said.

Borowski agreed to dismiss the case, but warned it could return for non-compliance and it would return to his courtroom. He said he had considered leaving it open to ensure the city and MPS complied and didn’t rescind the officers. “I’m not saying that would happen, but that thought did cross my mind,” he said.

The resolution came on new MPS superintendent Brenda Cassellius‘s first school day. Neither the new superintendent, nor any other district executives, attended Monday’s hearing. Earlier in the day, Cassellius made a public appearance at Bethune Academy to meet with students and staff.