Update given about the SRO program during 11/6 Safe and Successful Kids Interlocal Meeting

November 6, 2025

The Safe and Successful Kids (SSK) Interlocal Board that includes members from both the Lincoln Board of Education and the City of Lincoln, held their regular meeting on Thursday, Nov. 6, in the City Council Chambers located at 555 South 10th Street. The purpose of the meeting was to review the School Resource Officer (SRO) Program, School Perception and Discipline Data Reports for the 2024-2025 school year. 

A full video of the presentation can be found here.

Lincoln Public Schools and the City of Lincoln share the goal of promoting school safety which is an essential element of a positive and safe school climate. Building that environment includes building positive relationships with students and families, providing proactive instruction for positive behaviors, offering a wide-range of student supports, focusing on de-escalating conflicts and negative behaviors, engaging and assigning developmentally appropriate and fair processes and consequences and utilizing those consequences and supports to address the root causes of misbehavior.

This is the sixth year of gathering data based on the goals and expectations established by the 2018 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the SSK Interlocal Board. The MOU had six goals:

• Create a common understanding that school administrators and teachers are ultimately responsible for school discipline and culture, and SROs should not be involved in the enforcement of school rules.
• Minimize student discipline issues so they do not become school-based referrals to the juvenile justice system.
• Promote effectiveness and accountability.
• Provide training as available to SROs and appropriate LPS staff on effective strategies to work with students that align with program goals.
• Employ best practices so that all students are treated impartially and without bias by SROs and LPS staff in alignment with applicable City and LPS equity policies.
• Utilize best practices for training and oversight with the goal of reducing disproportionality.

Through this work, clear guidelines have been established and joint training with administrators and SROs takes place every year. This ensures there is a clear understanding of when an incident is only a violation of school rules, or when it is a law violation and the SROs need to be involved. 

The Full SRO Program Report includes nearly 124 pages of data, analysis and recommendations. Key takeaways from the report include:

• The 15 SROs received a total of 803 training hours in 2024-2025 and included topics such as youth mental health, unbiased policing, response to active shooter, de-escalation, emergency protective custody, behavioral health threat assessment, legal updates and first aid and tactical medical intervention.
• In 2024-2025, SROs received twelve commendations for a variety of events.
• There were four complaints against SROs in 2024-2025. Three were exonerated and one resulted in a warning.
• Calls for service occur when an individual believes that a crime has been committed and contacts police through any of the communication channels. Historically, teachers and/or staff initiated the highest percentage of calls. As part of training, the trend changed in 2023-2024 when administrators initiated the highest percentage, and that trend continued in 2024-2025. This is the desired outcome.
• Calls for service at all LPS schools decreased 19% from the four-year average and 17% from 2023-2024.
• Calls for service have decreased in middle and high schools for three consecutive years.
• A juvenile referral is when there is probable cause that a juvenile is responsible for a criminal act. In 2024-2025, referrals were down 62% from the four-year average.
• In 2024-2025, three students were lodged at the Youth Services Center as a result of one call for service. 
• As part of the 2024-2025 district perception survey, 10,278 students responded to the question “Overall, my school is safer because the SRO is in our building”, with 94% indicating they agreed or strongly agreed.
• In-school suspension data in 2024-2025 are similar to rates from the 2023-2024 school year. The data continues to show evidence of disproportionality for students who identify as male, Black, Hispanic, two or more races, and those in the Special Education program, English Language program and Free/Reduced Meal program.

Staff made the following recommendations supported by feedback from stakeholders, the data collected and best practices:

• LPS and LPD should continue professional development to reinforce the separation of law enforcement and student discipline.
• LPS and LPD will continue to review the calls for service, referrals and school discipline data in an effort to provide professional development opportunities that may decrease disparities.
• Both LPS and LPD will continue with implementation of restorative justice programs, and LPS will continue utilizing the Prevention Accountability and Restorative (PAR) Behavior Framework, now in its first full year of implementation.
• LPS and LPD should review the capacity of the Threat Assessment Team within LPS to determine whether or not there are additional needs related to the increase in threat assessment cases being reported.  

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