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Last school year, the number of calls for service to police officers assigned to Lincoln schools declined significantly, as did the calls that resulted in juvenile referrals to the county attorney. But an extensive annual report reviewing the work of school resource officers in Lincoln Public Schools also showed once again that students of color are still disproportionately more likely to be the suspects and victims of incidents of those calls despite the decrease in volume, the Journal Star's Jenna Ebbers reported. Such findings have come to be expected when LPS and the Lincoln Police Department put forward their yearly report to the Safe and Successful Kids Interlocal Board, a joint body comprised of members of the Lincoln school board and the City Council formed in 2018 after LPS added officers to middle schools.
The results are a bit of a mixed bag. People are also reading..
. Disparity indexes — essentially a way to measure gaps based on race and income, with a higher number indicating more disproportionality — dropped for Black students in the victim and suspect category, but rose slightly for those enrolled in the free- and reduced-lunch program. Native students saw their victim index increase slightly but drop in the suspect category.
And while in-school suspensions increased slightly last year, out-of-school suspensions remained stagnant, and expulsions leaped from 77 in 2022-23 to 132 last year. In each disciplinary outcome, disproportionality was evident. These numbers don't indicate that there is a so-called school-to-prison pipeline that many feared would put juveniles in the criminal justice system when more officers were added to schools.
The drop in calls for service and calls that resulted in referrals — only one student was eventually lodged in the Youth Services Center last year — shows LPS is headed in the right direction. But the relative stagnation of disparities year after year should prompt a call to action to build off the annual report's numbers and get at the root causes of disproportionality in our schools. Data is a good start.
But it's only useful when used to guide decisions that can truly lead to progress, which hopefully will be evident in next year's report. Enrollment growth a good sign LPS saw a pleasant surprise when its enrollment numbers for the 2024-25 school year came back. The official headcount showed the district grew by 647 students across the district, totaling 42,282 students in preschool through 12th grade, just shy of the record set before the pandemic.
It's the first time in eight years LPS has seen such a significant leap in enrollment, pointing to a post-COVID correction that was bound to come. The growth also points to an increase in immigrant children in LPS schools, with the district recording 679 more English Learner students enrolled than last school year at this time. With Donald Trump's return to the White House in January — and with it, a vow to crack down on migrants in the U.
S. — it remains to be seen if such growth is sustainable. But, regardless, it was indeed a pleasant surprise to finally see LPS put years of stagnation and enrollment drops spurred by the pandemic behind it.
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