Ensuring the safety of students should be the top priority of all of New Hampshire’s schools. Students need to know that they are in a safe and secure environment in order to learn. Many communities across our state, including here in Nashua, have for years partnered with their local police departments to provide School Resource Officers (SRO) as a way to ensure an additional layer of safety for our students, and the partnership has been a largely successful one.

Last summer, in the wake of the tragic death of George Floyd, millions of Americans gathered in grief and in protest, calling for greater accountability from the police who protect us and for solutions to the racial problems that still exist in our society. In New Hampshire, we did this peacefully and responsibly. Gov. Chris Sununu established the Commission on Law Enforcement Accountability, Community and Transparency (LEACT) to seek consensus solutions. And it did just that, bringing together people from across the political spectrum to endorse a wide range of recommendations.

LEACT recommended that the New Hampshire Police Standards and Training Council improve its training and certification for School Resource Officers and develop a model Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for local schools and departments to use. It also recommended that these agreements be available to the public, so that everyone would know the role and responsibilities of police officers working in our schools. We are working to implement these consensus recommendations, which would give our communities flexibility to use School Resource Officers as they deem best.

Senate Bill 108, whose purpose was to clarify the duties and responsibilities of school resource officers, would have negatively impacted the ability of school resource officers to carry out their responsibility to keep our schools safe.

Police departments and school officials from across New Hampshire opposed Senate Bill 108, which would have imposed a restrictive “one-size-fits-all” policy on all SRO programs, dictating policies that should be left to our cities and towns.

The Nashua Police Department currently has three SROs working in the city’s schools. In opposing SB 108, Nashua Lieutenant Brian Trefry testified that the city already has an MOU that meets Nashua’s specific needs. He said the bill would be far too restrictive on the day-to-day work of these officers and would threaten their ability to have students come to them confidentially or to intervene in suspected cases of child abuse. SB 108 would be wrong for Nashua, and every other community that chooses to have a School Resource Officer.

I voted against SB 108, as did all Senate Republicans, when the Senate voted it down last week. We will continue to implement the work of the LEACT Commission, improve transparency and accountability in law enforcement, and ensure the safety of New Hampshire students.

Sen. Kevin Avard, R-Nashua, represents Senate District 12.

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