ST. PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota lawmakers are on the second day of work for the 2024 session at the State Capitol, and already there is a bill making moves that could make a big impact on school safety.
A Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party lawmaker wants to add some clarity to last year’s school resource officer law, which led to many police departments pulling their SROs from schools .
The new law on education enacted last spring was more than 340 pages, but it was only a few select words about school safety that led to dozens of police departments pulling their student resource officers.
Officials worried a rule banning the use of certain holds and restraints unless there’s an imminent threat to bodily harm or death was too ambiguous.
“We’re all public servants. That includes law enforcement. We have to be responsive to what those that we serve want to see from us,” Rep. Cedric Frazier, DFL-New Hope, said.
Frazer’s proposed bill, which already cleared one committee on Monday night, seeks to clear the confusion.