Updated 5:13 p.m.

When the Portland school board voted to approve a $1.2 million contract to staff its high schools with full-time school resource officers, the backlash from students was immediate.

Outrage at the board’s December decision led to protests in front of City Hall. A group calling for the removal of Portland police officers from district schools began rallying students to the cause.

Within weeks, the board reversed course, pledging the district wouldn’t fund the program.

Many students, including Roosevelt senior Breely Buttita, thought that vote would be followed by a series of conversations about the role of police officers in Portland Public Schools. Buttita left a February feedback session district officials held at her North Portland school under the impression the district soon might not have cops patrolling the halls of the district’s high schools at all.

But, as The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has proposed setting aside $1.6 million in the city’s upcoming budget to provide 12 officers for the school resource officer program. Nine of those officers — at a cost of $1.2 million — will patrol Portland Public Schools buildings, police bureau spokesman Lt. Stephen Yakots told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Two more officers will serve the David Douglas School District. One officer will work in the Parkrose School District.

The city has footed the bill for student resource officers for about two decades. The mayor’s proposed allocation would maintain the status quo. Police bureau officials approached Portland Public Schools about picking up the tab late last year.

The school board initially voted to fund the program, only to reverse its decision under pressure.

The Portland City Council was scheduled to vote on the mayor’s proposed budget Wednesday. The vote has been pushed back to Thursday.

The proposed city spending on school resource officers is the result of conversations between city leaders and officials from the city’s three largest districts.

Wheeler and Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw met with the superintendents and school board chairs of each district in March and the six education leaders presented a united message, according to minutes from a David Douglas school board meeting.

The board members and superintendents indicated they want the student resource officer program to continue but have little interest in funding it.

“All three school districts expressed their unequivocal support for the SRO program and their desire to maintain the program,” Nicole Grant, Wheeler’s senior policy adviser told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email. “The mayor recognizes how sensitive this issue is and believes the question of the value of SROs should be left to the school districts, their students and families.”

At Portland Public Schools, district officials are waiting for the final vote on the mayor’s budget before they make the next move.

“We believe there is merit in having trained SROs who know our schools and students,” spokesman Harry Esteve said in a statement. “As the city budget is finalized, we will continue to work with the police bureau on a plan for the coming year, including incorporating our diverse student and staff perspective and voices into any potential agreement between our organizations.”

So far, student activists say the district’s priorities don’t align with their own.

Buttita said she hasn’t heard from district officials since they gathered feedback from Roosevelt students in February. And Sophia Lucas, a Jefferson high senior who helped found a student group that pushed for the district to drop school resource officers altogether, was under the impression that there’d be ongoing conversations about the program.

“I think it’s a terrible, horrible disappointment in priorities,” Lucas said. “I think it’s irresponsible.”

Members of the Portland school board repeatedly said they were uncomfortable with the program’s $1.2 million price during a January meeting. But both students said they don’t want police patrolling their schools regardless of the cost.

Buttita said she was dismayed by reports of a Portland police lieutenant’s friendly text exchanges with Joey Gibson, leader of the right-wing Patriot Prayer group. Regardless of where the money for the school resource officer program comes from, Buttita said she would prefer to see it go elsewhere.

“I honestly feel like the city paying for this even worse because there are so many homeless issues going on,” she said. “The city could be focusing so much more on that.”

Lucas, who graduates in June, said she feels unsafe when she sees armed police officers patrolling her school. She’s Native American and Latina and said she rarely hears positive stories from people of color about their interactions with police.

Lucas plans on attending Portland State University in the fall. And if police still roam the halls of her high school then, Lucas said she’ll still attend board meetings to push for an end to the program.

She wants to do it for her sisters, Lucas said.

“I know how it feels to see a cop roaming a school. And I don’t really want my siblings going to school in fear,” she said.