SEATTLE — Could officers be returning to Seattle Public Schools, five years after the district ended its program that allowed law enforcement in schools?
Seattle Police Chief Shon Barnes told KIRO 7 in a sit-down interview with Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington that it’s a priority for the city.
“When I talk to people, they want us to return to the schools in some capacity inside the school,” Barnes said.
Garfield High School has been at the center of discussions when it comes to returning an officer to Seattle schools.
“Are you saying that SPD is looking to get a school engagement officer inside Garfield next school year?” KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked.
“I think not only SPD but many people in the community, many people who are parents, teachers, and students would like to see some meaningful engagement of our police officers inside the school,” Barnes said.
He said depending on data, multiple schools could each have an SEO, a school engagement officer. Each officer would be out of uniform but still armed.
“Do you have enough officers now to have a dedicated officer for potentially each of those high schools?” Sheldon asked.
“I’ve always believed that resources are spent where your heart and your energy is,” Barnes said.
Garfield had a School Resource Officer in the past. But a moratorium in 2020 removed police from inside Seattle Public Schools. The school board made the move amidst nationwide protests against police violence, specifically against people of color, and controversy over armed officers in schools.
“It’s my understanding that the school board would have to lift the moratorium and then I would certainly be willing to sit down and have as many meetings as necessary to talk about it,” Barnes said.
Seattle Public Schools Executive Director of Safety and Security Jose Curiel Morelos said the district is ready to present a proposal to the school board this summer.
“We need to go up to the board for them to lift it, but we also need communities to come together and ask for it,” he said.
Morelos said the district has drafted a Memorandum of Understanding, or MOU. He said a school engagement officer would need to be a person students could develop a trusted relationship with.
“I also grew up undocumented, so for me, you know, for different people, a uniform can mean different things, right?” he said. “So we have to be mindful of that, too, and how we communicate to the community that police are there to be a resource and they’re not there to, you know, be part of disciplinary procedures and or, you know, immigration enforcement or anything like that.”
“This actually should have been in place this school year,” parent Appollonia Washington said. Her son is a sophomore at Garfield High School. Her daycare, A 4 Apple Learning Center, is just a few blocks away.
Washington said she knows many in the community wanted an officer to return to Garfield even before the shooting death of 17-year-old Amarr Murphy-Paine in June of 2024 in the school parking lot.
Late last year, Interim Police Chief Sue Rahr told KIRO 7 that she had been under the impression that a pilot program was going to begin in the fall of 2024.
But in August, she said, something changed.
“I don’t know what changed but the plan shifted away from that,” she said.
“We want these resources and they’re still not here,” Garfield parent and PTSA co-president Alicia Spanswick said.
KIRO 7 first started talking to Washington and Spanswick last fall after the district and city rolled out a $14.55 million plan to make kids safer.
Spanswick’s two children also attend Garfield.
Both parents have been asking for the same things: better communications on the district and city’s plan; information on mental health supports for students; and when Garfield will get an officer back inside the school.
In September, Spanswick expressed doubts about Public Health’s ability to hire 42 new mental health specialists by June.
“I hesitate to say that those would get filled in the in this school year,” she said then.
She wasn’t wrong. 14 out of the 42 have been hired so far.
“So they’ve hired 14 of 42. How are they going to close that gap in just a few months?” KIRO 7 reporter Linzi Sheldon asked Deputy Mayor Tiffany Washington.
“So when you hire that large of a group of people that you’re looking for the same specialty, you always have people in queue,” Deputy Mayor Washington said. “And so just because they’ve only hired 14 out of 42, they probably at any one time could have 150 active applications.”
“So they feel confident that they’re going to reach 42 by the time school starts in this coming year?” Sheldon asked.
“Yep,” Deputy Mayor Washington said.
According to SPS, the 14 new mental health specialists are being placed across Rainier Beach, Garfield, Chief Sealth International, Franklin, Ingraham, Aki Kurose, Washington, Denny, Mercer, Robert Eagle Staff, and Meany.
“Each school will receive at least one additional mental health clinician, bringing the total to two full-time mental health specialists per site once hiring is complete,” SPS Accountability Officer Ted Howard wrote. “Hiring is underway, with positions at Garfield and Seattle World School already filled. The full rollout is expected to begin by the start of the 2025–26 school year.”
The plan also includes telehealth support. SPS said between July and December of 2024, Joon served 193 students, while Talkspace, which launched in December 2024, served 240 students through March 2025.
Both services will continue into the 2025–26 school year.
And when it comes to the overall safety plan, the deputy mayor told KIRO 7 that the funding will return next year.
Washington said the money would come from SPD, the city’s general fund, the Seattle Human Services Department, and $46.6 million from Mayor Bruce Harrell’s proposed $1.3 billion levy called “Every Child Ready,” if voters approve it.
Spanswick said it’s good information.
“It would just be nice if they shared it with us,” she said.
Deputy Mayor Washington said the city will roll out a dashboard to track these investments, something Spanswick has been asking for.
But Appollonia Washington wants community meetings to figure out the best ways to spend this money. She said some of the money might be better spent contracting with counseling services already in the community or organizing get-togethers that help people support young people.
“Bring others to the table, more youth to the table,” she said.
The city has also made changes to patrols after KIRO 7 discovered the police logged only half a dozen patrols outside the five high schools that the city said had higher rates of violence.
Barnes now tells KIRO 7 that SPD’s added a new dispatch code to track those patrols.
Numbers show between April 15th and May 7th, officers visited each high school dozens of times. Garfield saw 34 patrol counts logged; Chief Sealth, 28; Rainier Beach, 24; Franklin, 22; and Ingraham, 21.
“We’re making sure we’re more efficient with our patrols,” Barnes said.
The district is also rolling out an updated security system across all 106 schools as part of the BEX VI levy. That will include new cameras, access control, intrusion alarms, and vestibule entrances in all schools. The district is focusing on 15 schools right now and plans to complete 30 a year.
And Morelos said SPS has added 15 more security specialists.
“We’re prioritizing based on the need and based on incidents,” he said.
Garfield had two; now, it has four.
Both Alicia Spanswick and Appollonia Washington want to be hopeful as the school year ends — but they know a lot depends on the school board.
“I would like to be optimistic,” Spanswick said.
“We need the school board to do their job,” Washington said.
KIRO 7 emailed all 7 school board members to ask if they would consider officers returning to schools. None of them responded.
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