PARENTS WANT POLICE IN SCHOOLS

Groups Seek To Expand Program

Drug Use, Violence Among Concerns

A group of parents wants police in more of the city's high schools to
stop crime before it happens.

Grassroots organizations representing parents from the inner city and
River Heights will be at city hall this morning looking for funding
to expand the schools resource officer program.

Barbara Coombs, chairwoman of a River Heights group called Parents
for an Aware Community, said her group is hoping the city will
contribute funds for one police officer to patrol three area high schools.

"You wouldn't think that those kinds of problems exist in our
schools, but that's a myth," Coombs said. "Every high school has
issues that have to be dealt with."

Coombs represents parents with children at four high schools --
Kelvin, Grant Park, Churchill and College Churchill.

Coombs said that each of the schools have concerns over drug-dealing
and drug use, bullying and violence. The group wants one police
officer to work with the four schools and the area's feeder junior
high schools.

Other parents' groups will also be at city hall this morning, as the
standing civic committees begin their two-week review of the
$741-million operating budget proposed by Mayor Sam Katz almost two weeks ago.

The parents will make their presentation at the protection and
community services committee, which reviews the police service budget.

Other parents' groups are looking for funding to extend the
school-based policing program in the city's North End to two
downtown-area schools: Gordon Bell High School and Hugh John
Macdonald junior high school.

One police officer -- known as a school resource officer -- has been
assigned to each of three North End schools for four years: R.B.
Russell, Children of the Earth, and St. John's High School. The
officers act in a crime prevention and education role with the students.

They've been credited with diverting kids from gang and criminal
activity and, through their work with school kids, have garnered
valuable police intelligence on criminal activity in the area.

Coombs said the River Heights area used to have two community police
officers who worked closely with the area's schools, but those
positions were eliminated three years ago. She said the area now gets
response only after the crimes are committed.

"That's crime response, not crime prevention," Coombs said.

Coombs said the Winnipeg Police Service is sympathetic to the
parents' concerns, but added police executives told her that they
don't have the funding for the additional manpower.

Coombs said it's estimated that it would cost about $100,000 to have
one police officer assigned to the River Heights high schools, adding
she wants the expense to be cost-shared between the city, the
Winnipeg School Division and the province.