Safiya Merchant

Battle Creek Enquirer

About 20 Albion residents protested Monday at Marshall Middle School against the placement of an armed police officer in the schools.

The protest came just a few days after a Marshall Middle School administrator called for police presence after a student from Albion refused to put a cell phone away or turn it in and go to the office.

While Albion community members questioned the placement of the officer just as Albion middle-schoolers started attending the school as part of an expanded cooperative agreement, district officials said the decision was made long before discussion of accepting Albion middle school students began.

Marshall Superintendent Randy Davis said Marshall Police Chief Jim Schwartz approached him in 2013 about getting a new school resource officer for the district.

"I told him at that point, in 2013, I didn't want to do that," Davis said. "... I didn't want to go after a school resource officer at the same time we were bringing students over in a cooperative agreement from Albion. I just didn't think that would play well and I didn't think it was necessary because we made no changes in our crisis response plan, we made no changes in our supervision and disciplinary policies or anything like that."

The topic arose again last summer, when Schwartz asked Davis if he would consider covering half of the cost for a school resource officer through a grant.

Davis submitted a grant request in August to the Kalamazoo River Community Recreational Foundation, according to a Marshall Middle School Facebook post signed by Davis. The Marshall Police Department would provide matching funds.

"In the grant when I wrote it, I wrote for two particular objectives or services I wanted from the resource officer: one was to proactively educate in a preventative way all of our students across the buildings in grades K-12 on legal lifestyles and the importance of the police department in maintaining the law of the land as well as order in society," Davis said. "And then the second thing I wanted them to do was to help us reduce the number of lost instructional days due to disciplinary action."

Marshall was awarded the one-year grant in September. They then crafted the job description, posted the job opening and conducted interviews.

The officer started after Christmas break in January. Her office is in the middle school, but she works at all Marshall school buildings.

"This was all written before we even began any conversation about extending the cooperative agreement to includes grade 6-8," Davis said. "... So it just happened that she came on board as we described for the grant in 2016, at the same time, things changed with Albion and we agreed to, by their invitation, to extend the cooperative agreement."

Davis said although a police presence was requested to help a student comply with school officials last week, they did not specifically request the three police cars that eventually showed up to the school.

"There was no big show of force, there was no interaction with the police other than just being in presence," Davis said, later adding that once the student went to the office, police left.

Davis said although he will be having a conversation with the administrator in question, police have been called to deal with similar situations in the past.

Davis said district officials told him that the Monday protesters' main concern had to do with having an armed police officer in school. He said officers are not allowed to work in the school unarmed.

In terms of next steps, Davis said he is having conversations with various community officials and that he does not plan on changing the district's direction with its police officer.

"They have the right to protest as long as they don't disrupt the educational process," he said. "... I've given them all the facts, they understand the facts, and they're still choosing to protest, so I guess they're going to protest."

Albion resident Brenda Davis, who attended the protest, said she does not want her grandson to go to middle school in Marshall next year because of these issues.

"Why would the police officer have to be armed with a pistol and a taser?" Davis asked. "I think that's overdoing it there."

Davis said protesters plan to return to Marshall on Thursday.

Contact Safiya Merchant at 269-966-0684 or smerchant@battlecreekenquirer.com. Follow her on Twitter: @SafiyaMerchant