Saint Paul, MN —The Minnesota House of Representatives on Monday approved a bill to improve school safety after a change in law last year resulted in school resource officers (SROs) to be removed from many schools throughout the state. State Representative Josh Heintzeman, R-Nisswa, issued the following statement reacting to Monday’s vote:
“This is an issue that Republicans, law enforcement groups, and schools have been looking to fix for months now,” said Heintzeman. “It is disappointing that Democrats continued to put politics above safety in schools and refused to stand up to their anti-law enforcement activist base. Nevertheless, I am pleased that they have retreated from their initial position and decided to work with us and other stakeholders to provide the fix that schools and law enforcement were seeking. Students, parents, and teachers overwhelmingly support having SROs in their schools and this was the right thing to do for them.”
The issue traces back to an omnibus education bill (HF 2497) Democrats enacted in 2023 that imposed prohibitions on the use of force in schools, banning certain physical holds by “an employee or agent of a district, including a school resource officer, security personnel, or police officer contracted with a district."
Language in the new measure provides updates which exclude SROs as employees or agents of a school district, exclude SROs from the prohibitions on prone restraints and physical holds; revise the “reasonable force standard” and mandate school districts and charter schools use only trained SROs and establishes new training and model policy requirements for law enforcement.
The House approved the bill 124-8 and it now awaits action in the Senate.
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