Minnesota Senate to vote on school resource officer bill

The Minnesota Senate will consider a bill that lifts restrictions on the kinds of restraints school resource officers may use on students. The floor vote, scheduled for Monday morning, comes a week after the House approved a similar measure by an overwhelming majority.

The legislation is the result of months of talks between legislators and law enforcement officials after several police chiefs and sheriffs began pulling their officers out of schools in late August. Authorities argued that a 2023 tweak to the law describing how and when an officer may restrain students left campus police open to litigation.

Sen. Bonnie Westlin, DFL-Plymouth, who authored the Senate bill, said the legislation’s development “included the voices of many Minnesotans.” Legislators faced criticism last year for not inviting law enforcement leaders to weigh in on the original bill.

“Our work to clarify the roles of SROs has been centered on the belief that our schools are institutions of learning, and that every adult working in our schools should be there to provide a safe and supportive learning environment,” Westlin said. “I think we’ve achieved that with the help of many stakeholders and voices, and I’m very pleased it will now move to the full Senate.”

Essentially, school resource officers could only restrain a student if it was all but certain they were about to physically harm themselves or others, even if they were breaking the law. That led about 40 agencies to pull their officers out of schools.

Several kept their officers on campus. And in some cities, including Bloomington, police departments beefed up their school resource officer programs.

The new bill would separate school resource officers from other campus employees when it comes to student restraint and discipline. The Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (POST) would develop a training program for school resource officers and draft a model policy for school boards to adopt throughout the state.

School resource officers would also explicitly be barred from enforcing campus rules or handing out discipline to students who break them. They would also be coached on how to limit their use of physical holds on students, particularly prone restraint.

That legislation has faced pushback from some progressives and education advocates who argue it should not allow police to put children in the prone position, which was explicitly banned by the 2023 law. The practice is banned in special education settings.

Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a pair of clarifications to the law, which said police use-of-force statutes override those newer campus-based ones, leading some agencies to restore their school resource officer programs.

This story will be updated.