EASTHAMPTON – After voting to move forward with the process to remove school resource officers (SRO) from Easthampton Public Schools, the School Committee took a step back amidst confusion regarding the impact of their vote.

The SRO is a position required in all districts by Massachusetts state law. In order to remove the position, the district would have to receive a waiver from the state. The School Committee agreed on Aug. 11 to begin the process of eliminating the position. In a letter to the community on Aug. 14, Superintendent Dr. Allison LeClair said she was submitting a waiver request “as a result of our school committee meeting this week.”

At its Aug. 25 meeting, however, some members of the committee stated they were not aware that they were necessarily moving forward with the waiver request while others had an interpretation of the waiver process that was inconsistent with the opinion of the police chief and his legal counsel as well as the district’s legal advisor.

Committee member Shannon Dunham expressed confusion regarding the implications of the vote at the Aug. 11 meeting, stating it was her understanding that the committee agreed to continue to look into the issue of a waiver and sought clarification. At that point, committee member Laurie Garcia renewed her objections to eliminating the SRO position, stating, “I’m extremely concerned about this.” She asserted the committee as a whole was unclear about the objective of their vote to pursue a waiver.

“We didn’t even know that night what we were voting on and that’s evident now and I think that vote should just be nullified and we just have to take the time … to really research this and understand what that waiver meant,” Garcia said.

Committee Chair Cynthia Kwiecinski agreed that she was unhappy with the process, which she called “chaotic,” and also stated she believed the committee was only voting on whether to continue to look into the removal of the SRO position. She said her understanding was the district would conduct research and outreach in order to revisit the discussion in October and allow for the SRO to give a presentation.

Police Chief Robert Alberti said – and LeClair agreed – that the School Committee voted for the superintendent to move forward with the waiver, adding, “I don’t know if there was any caveat there to wait until October, so that’s something, Chairperson Kwiecinski, that you should think about.”

He went on to say the committee ran the risk of receiving a waiver prior to continued discussion in October, which could present a problem if the committee ultimately determined it wished to continue the SRO program after all.

Committee member Marissa Carrere argued, “It was very clear to me from the conversation with the mayor we were having on the evening when we took the vote that the waiver frees the district from the state requirement. When you are required by the state to either have an SRO in your building or the state will assign you a state police officer unless you have the waiver. My understanding at that point is you could have a waiver and yet as a district under local control still elect to have an SRO in your building … That’s why we said to go through with the waiver but then we could have a public forum, we could hear from the Equity Steering Committee, and we could make a decision locally on how we actually want to approach this.”

Committee member Marin Goldstein also said it was his recollection that Mayor Nicole LaChapelle had indicated the waiver did not necessarily compel the schools to eliminate the position. Committee member Jonathan Schmidt said he had the same understanding of the vote as Carrere.

Alberti had a different interpretation after speaking with legal counsel. “My understanding of that is not the case, which is why before any movement was made there I would definitely seek the school district’s counsel.”

LeClair also said she consulted legal counsel whose opinion stands in opposition of LaChapelle’s. Kwiecinski said she was told by the same counsel that they were unsure, adding, “It wasn’t clear at all.”

Dunham said she was worried the issue would be swept under the rug if the Aug. 11 vote was repealed. Kwiecinski said the discussion would be placed on a future agenda and Alberti reassured the committee he would not put any officers in the schools until the committee had rendered a vote.

Goldstein and Carrere both voiced concerns that action on the previous vote had been delayed and at that point the vote was being reexamined. Kwiecinski retorted that revotes can happen whenever situations change. She also said no direction was given to LeClair to delay action on the previous vote.

Goldstein suggested putting a hold on the waiver until the committee had time to review the various opinions on the legal ramifications of the action. The motion passed with Dunham abstaining. LaChapelle was not present for the vote.

Currently, the SRO position is held by Officer Rick Rogalski and is funded through the Police Department’s budget, although the district does pay for some of the training, per the Memorandum of Understanding. A second position is also being sought, which would be filled by Officer Mitchell Cichy. That position would be paid for by a grant from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

If the committee moves forward with the waiver and it is approved, Rogalski would be reassigned as a detective in the Easthampton Police Department, according to Alberti. Cichy would conduct community policing and outreach work in accordance with the COPS grant requirements.

Prior to the discussion, the committee heard a presentation from Rogalski and Cichy. LeClair said while Rogalski made a statement on the topic during the public speak portion of the previous meeting on the SRO topic, he was not able to complete it due to time limitations and Easthampton Public Schools wished to be “mindful of giving everyone a fair amount of time.”

“I know that this has been a challenging issue in the last few months. I have expressed publicly and to the Police Department that I am in support of a school resource officer and I base that on my previous experiences as an educator,” LeClair said. “I worked with several school resource officers both as a teacher and as an administrator and I have found them to be invaluable.”

The superintendent also acknowledged “challenges” related to the position in the past, but have made “a lot of inroads” since then.

“We have really worked hard to shift some of our thinking around how to utilize school resource officers,” she said, noting the current policies were developed in collaboration with the Attorney General’s Office that has been called “a model policy” within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Rogalski, a 26-year veteran of the Easthampton Police Department and city resident since 1994, has been the SRO since September 2017. He is a member of the SRO Training Board, an executive board member of the Massachusetts Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program and is on the executive committee for the Easthampton Healthy Youth Coalition.

While restating several points from his previous comments to the School Committee, Rogalski said the role of an SRO is, among other tasks, to create and maintain safe learning environments, providing resources to school staff, fostering relationships with youth, developing problem-solving strategies and assist students in crisis. He said the position requires taking on multiple roles as an educator, counselor and police officer. He is a member of the Student Support Team (SST) at Easthampton High School and White Brook Middle School. Considered a staff member, he has access to student information protected by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act but said he does not share that information outside of the schools. He also said he can provide information to the SST on police activities outside of the school that might have an impact on a student and collaborates on how to support that student.

Rogalski stressed that he does not discipline students in the schools.

“I know a lot of people think that’s the case; I don’t. I don’t suspend students, I don’t expel students, I don’t give detentions,” he said. “If I see a student – unless it’s something I need to intercede in – I do what teachers do. I report to the administration and they handle the school discipline.”

In the event that the school finds a student’s activities are or could be unlawful, Rogalski said he may be called in and he and the administration would conduct parallel investigations. He reiterated that since 2017, he has only filed charges against one student with the intent of putting that student in a diversion program through the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office. Citing research that stated if students are incarcerated, they are more likely to offend as adults, he said his goal is to prevent that.

“The ‘school-to-prison pipeline,’ my understanding of that or how that arose is police officers in the schools are charging students with school issues that were normally handled by school administrators. I know for sure that doesn’t happen in Easthampton,” Rogalski said. “A lot of our training has revolved around how to help these students without getting them involved in the juvenile criminal justice system.”

Goldstein asked how often Rogalski has to engage in criminal investigations in the schools or had to reach out to students and parents regarding events that have taken place outside of school. Rogalski said parallel investigations take place “quite a bit,” however, only one has resulted in a criminal complaint because it is often determined the student would be better served by school administration intervention. Alberti noted many parallel investigations are the result of mandated reporting by school staff, which is referred to the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office and forwarded to the Easthampton Police Department.

“Whether or not there’s an SRO in the school, those investigations are still going to happen based on mandated reporting,” he said.

Rogalski added it was harder to put a number on out-of-school instances, but he has been in contact with some families since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic shut down schools and sometimes parents reach out to him. He said occasionally he gets requests from parents to “scare” their children which he said, “I absolutely do not do.”

When asked by Goldstein about an arrest made by Rogalski at Easthampton High School that prompted an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office related to racial equity, Rogalski noted he was not the SRO at the time. Alberti said Rogalski and another officer were assigned to the school because it was in their assigned patrol district. Rogalski also noted the then-SRO was out injured and stressed his feeling that had an SRO been in the building, the incident in question would not have happened.

“That’s actually a good argument to keep an SRO,” Rogalski said. “I had none of the training I currently have … I was a police officer at the time who was assigned as a liaison to the school at that time. That incident, I learned a lot of things. I grew as a police officer and it really propelled me forward into wanting to become the SRO.”

Carrere asked for specific examples of growth and what steps Rogalski has taken to make minority populations feel safe in the wake of an investigation that found policies to be in violation of students’ civil liberties. Rogalski said a number of his close relationships in the schools are with students who identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). He said he has also worked with district personnel on presentations focused on minority parents, however, he admitted it can be a struggle to engage some populations and some presentations had low turnouts.

Rogalski also said during his presentation he understood concerns or lack of comfort experienced by students when in the presence of an SRO but said identifying the root of the discomfort would better serve the community than eliminating the position.

“I think we’d be better served finding out why they are uncomfortable with an SRO,” he said. “I think removing the SRO is only going to exasperate those problems going forward.”

Rogalski also indicated he is part of the safety team at all of the district’s schools. He added he is part of the Students and Teachers Raising Awareness Together program, which addresses issues related to bullying and also conducts the D.A.R.E. program at White Brook. Addressing concerns that the D.A.R.E. program is ineffective, he said the system has been “revamped,” using the fifth grade “Keeping it Real” program developed in collaboration with Penn State University as an example. He said the program is more specifically designed on healthy decision-making with the only drugs specifically mentioned being alcohol and tobacco and while there is a unit on marijuana if the topic arises, it has not yet been necessary.

In the classroom, he said he has worked with physics classes with his experience as an accident reconstructionist and presented to middle school health classes before the elimination of the health teacher position.

Addressing the COPS grant, Rogalski said he was excited when the city received the award and the prospect of adding a second SRO, noting he was “spread pretty thin.” He described Cichy as “exactly the right person for that position” with qualities that include prior experience as an SRO.

Cichy noted he had 30 years of experience in law enforcement, and specialized in community policing efforts in Northampton’s low-income housing areas that sought to prevent juvenile incarcerations, prevent evictions and engage in crisis intervention for local youth through alliances with the Juvenile Probation Department, the local housing authority, tenant groups and social services. He said he remains in contact with many of the now-grown youth with whom he worked, including becoming the Godfather for one.

He became SRO at Northampton High School in 2002 for a one-year assignment, then stepped back from full-time policing. He applied to the Easthampton Police Department at the suggestion of his son, also an Easthampton police officer, earning a full-time assignment this summer.

On his decision to apply for the proposed additional SRO position, Cichy said, “I feel that our youth deserved all the help and experience someone can offer. With a school system of nearly 1,500 kids, I feel their safety and wellbeing should be a priority in this country and world of unknowns.”