Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2007
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2007 Winnipeg Free Press
Contact:  http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502
Author: Aldo Santin
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

PARENTS WANT POLICE IN SCHOOLS

Groups Seek To Expand Program

Drug Use, Violence Among Concerns

A group of parents wants police in more of the city's high schools to 
stop crime before it happens.

Grassroots organizations representing parents from the inner city and 
River Heights will be at city hall this morning looking for funding 
to expand the schools resource officer program.

Barbara Coombs, chairwoman of a River Heights group called Parents 
for an Aware Community, said her group is hoping the city will 
contribute funds for one police officer to patrol three area high schools.

"You wouldn't think that those kinds of problems exist in our 
schools, but that's a myth," Coombs said. "Every high school has 
issues that have to be dealt with."

Coombs represents parents with children at four high schools -- 
Kelvin, Grant Park, Churchill and College Churchill.

Coombs said that each of the schools have concerns over drug-dealing 
and drug use, bullying and violence. The group wants one police 
officer to work with the four schools and the area's feeder junior 
high schools.

Other parents' groups will also be at city hall this morning, as the 
standing civic committees begin their two-week review of the 
$741-million operating budget proposed by Mayor Sam Katz almost two weeks ago.

The parents will make their presentation at the protection and 
community services committee, which reviews the police service budget.

Other parents' groups are looking for funding to extend the 
school-based policing program in the city's North End to two 
downtown-area schools: Gordon Bell High School and Hugh John 
Macdonald junior high school.

One police officer -- known as a school resource officer -- has been 
assigned to each of three North End schools for four years: R.B. 
Russell, Children of the Earth, and St. John's High School. The 
officers act in a crime prevention and education role with the students.

They've been credited with diverting kids from gang and criminal 
activity and, through their work with school kids, have garnered 
valuable police intelligence on criminal activity in the area.

Coombs said the River Heights area used to have two community police 
officers who worked closely with the area's schools, but those 
positions were eliminated three years ago. She said the area now gets 
response only after the crimes are committed.

"That's crime response, not crime prevention," Coombs said.

Coombs said the Winnipeg Police Service is sympathetic to the 
parents' concerns, but added police executives told her that they 
don't have the funding for the additional manpower.

Coombs said it's estimated that it would cost about $100,000 to have 
one police officer assigned to the River Heights high schools, adding 
she wants the expense to be cost-shared between the city, the 
Winnipeg School Division and the province.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom