A new bill designed to increase safety in Arizona schools and surrounding communities would qualify retired police officers to be stationed at K-12 schools on weekdays. 

Michael Kurtenbach, Director of School Safety in the Arizona Department of Education, proposed this bill to state lawmakers after saying the demand for law enforcement in schools was greater than the capacity to provide officers for each school. Kurtenbach presented this bill to the Tempe Family Justice Commision at a meeting last Tuesday. 

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“You can’t keep doing things the same way you’ve been doing them before– that’s why I’m trying to get as creative as I can with staffing and looking at that retiree pool,” Kurtenbach said, “There are a lot of retirees that would love to have the opportunity to go back into a school environment.” 

Kurtenbach said the retired officers would be required to go through a minimum one week-long training program to become official school resource officers (SROs) before being instated at a school. 

Kurtenbach said the bill would not only help to ensure the safety of students, but also local communities. It would allow current full-authority officers working as SROs to go back to being deployed in investigations, patrol work, and other assignments while their spots are filled with retirees. 

Some members of the Tempe Family Justice Commission expressed their content with the bill. 

At-large member and former resource officer Patricia Riggs communicated her concerns surrounding her past experience working with another officer. 

“I was a resource officer at one time and it was not a good experience for me,” Riggs said, “I really hope [officers] get better training and learn how to work with people.” 

Riggs said the officer she worked alongside made some incorrect statements specifically regarding domestic violence that may have been harmful to students. 

Kurtenbach reassured her by emphasizing the extensive training officers would be put through. He said officers would not be there to enforce, but to complement the existing structure. 

“I am trying to get the officers to understand, rightfully, who they are there for,” Kurtenbach said, “Whatever past experiences there were, that maybe were of negative nature, now this officer has a chance to flip that, and that’s where it’s really that societal shift toward understanding what law enforcement’s role is– and that is as a protector not an enforcer.” 

Kurtenbach said he was teaching the retired officers the idea of mentorship to shut down any disconcertment students may have about the “school to prison pipeline.” 

The school to prison pipeline can be defined as a police presence at schools that leads to students, typically of minority groups, getting punished or pushed out of school for small infractions. 

Commission member Stephen Baines said he had seen the positive impacts of having SROs on school campuses firsthand. 

“Where I come from we absolutely didn’t talk to the police until we started having law enforcement on campus and they became the excitement of the school, so seeing how impactful it is was something that was really important to me,” he said. 

Baines said that just having the presence of police in schools can help to create a better and safer community. 

The school safety bill would most likely go into effect in June 2025, aligning closely with the start of the next school year. 

Kurtenbach said he felt as though the replacement of full-authority officers with retired officers in schools would be a “win-win” situation. 

“It will not only increase safety in schools, but it will increase safety in the community as well,” Kurtenbach said, “A retiree is a lot cheaper than a full-authority officer so you can get a lot more 

coverage in schools with a retiree that has commensurate, if not even better, training, and the full authority officer that’s in the school right now goes back to the community.”