Budget woes end SROs at Pierce school district, but immigrant advocates see a win
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Franklin Pierce Schools ended school resource officer contract with Sheriff’s Office.
- District cites financial strain and says it can handle some incidents internally.
- Immigrant rights advocates celebrate the move as a safeguard against ICE ties.
The contract that had two Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies working as school resource officers for the Franklin Pierce School District ended this summer and won’t be renewed due to financial issues.
It is one of three contracts the Sheriff’s Office has with school districts in the county, providing four school resource officers to the Bethel School District and three to the Puyallup School District, which has another three resource officers through the Puyallup Police Department. The uniformed deputies conduct criminal investigations, often for incidents such as a student bringing a weapon or drugs onto campus or to respond to threats made between students.
Although the school district has said the decision was purely financial, a local immigrant advocacy group has framed it as a win that keeps federal immigration authorities out of schools.
Carly Cappetto, a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office, said school resource officers do not participate in immigration enforcement. However, Sheriff Keith Swank has been vocal about his desire to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — which would violate state law — and at times has appeared to relish in the fear that President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts have struck into undocumented immigrants.
Additionally, the brewing standoff between U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Gov. Bob Ferguson appears to threaten Washington’s so-called sanctuary law, the Keep Washington Working Act, which prohibits cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. Posting about Bondi’s ultimatum to Ferguson, Swank wrote on X Aug. 15: “I’m looking forward to warrants being issued. I’m going to have to dust off and oil up my cuffs.”
The $341,920 annual contract ended June 30. Joel Zylstra, a district spokesperson, said the decision not to renew came through the 2025-2026 budget process. He said they considered going down to one school resource officer, but that was a deal-breaker for the Sheriff’s Office.
Zylstra denied that Swank’s willingness to work with ICE had anything to do with the decision not to renew. He said they’ve had conversations with the Sheriff’s Office about the district’s relationship with them and how a relationship with ICE would affect their schools, and he said that despite what Swank has said, nothing has changed.
“I would say it was not a factor in this decision,” Zylstra said. “However, we are very aware of some of the things being said and have shared some of those concerns.”
Asked whether the school district was considering alternatives to having deputies on patrol, Zylstra said the Franklin Pierce School Board was still looking into it, and for now they’re trying to work on protocol for what incidents can be dealt with internally versus what incidents would still require a law enforcement response from the Sheriff’s Office.
“The reality is we have two school resource officers, 14 schools, so they couldn’t respond to everything anyway, even if they wanted to,” Zylstra said. “And there’s some things that were probably being referred to resource officers that we could be doing in house.”
Franklin Pierce Schools have not been immune to the financial challenges that have lately strained the budgets of local schools due to a combination of factors that include the end of federal funding that came in the form of the American Rescue Plan during the COVID-19 pandemic, a lack of state funding for public education, and declining enrollment.
Proposed federal budget cuts to the U.S. Department of Education have also put funding at risk, totaling $709,707 that could be canceled for Franklin Pierce Schools, according to the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction.
In May, 9.5 full-time positions were cut from the district, a year after 60 full-time staff, including 41 teachers, were laid off.
Spokespersons for the Bethel and Puyallup school districts said Tuesday that they are not considering ending their contracts with the Sheriff’s Office for resource officers.
“We believe our SROs play a critical role in maintaining a safe and supportive learning environment for our students, staff, and community,” said Sarah Gillispie, a spokesperson for the Puyallup School District.
Even if it’s simply about dollars and cents, Horacio Perez-Morales of the Pierce County Immigration Alliance told The News Tribune that fears about immigration enforcement in the state are well-founded, and ending the school resource officers contract prevents the possibility of future interactions between the officers, ICE, students and their families.
“We don’t want to be working retroactively, even if something hasn’t directly happened with an SRO involving ICE, we see it as a win in the sense that it will stop anything from happening in the future,” Perez-Morales said.
Cappetto, who was a school resource officer in the Puyallup School District for four years, said it was the most rewarding position she’s had in the Sheriff’s Office. She said she built relationships with students and recalled a time that she confiscated a weapon from a student after getting a tip that someone had a gun.
She added that she believes having a patrol car parked outside a school can be a deterrent to crime.
“I’m a parent of my own kids and I would only want my kids in schools where there were school resource officers knowing that my kids were safe,” Cappetto said.
“I do think there’s a large portion of the community that feels really safe when they see deputies parked in front of schools and they’re dropping their kids off,” Cappetto said.
