After months of negotiations between the City of Akron and Akron Public Schools, the Akron school board voted down a new contract that would have taken away its veto power over which Akron police officers are placed in its schools.
The contract would have guaranteed that officers continued working inside Akron schools through the end of June.
In October, Firestone Community Learning Center’s school resource officer, Zachary McCormick, an Akron police officer, punched a student three times in the head after he attempted to bypass the school’s metal detector and as McCormick was trying to arrest him.
McCormick was reassigned out of the school in the contentious aftermath – as allowed under the contract between the schools and the city at the time. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge #7 filed an unfair labor grievance with the City of Akron claiming the officer’s due process rights outlined in their collective bargaining agreement were violated.
Contracts between Akron Public Schools and the City of Akron for Akron police officers to serve in schools long included a provision allowing the school board to unilaterally remove and replace the officers when concerns arose.
Trying to find a compromise
The contract between APS and the City of Akron expired on Jan.1, and officers have been working in the schools without an updated agreement. The grievance filed by the FOP against the city is still ongoing, as the two sides also negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement.
In the meantime, the city and school district’s attorneys have, for months, been negotiating a new agreement for school resource officers, and Akron schools’ Superintendent Michael Robinson (now on paid administrative leave related to other matters) agreed to a proposal that placates the city’s relationship with the police union and keeps officers in Akron schools while also giving away authority the school board believes it should have.
“Members of our law department worked on an amendment to the SRO contract with lawyers from APS for months and we felt that we had come to an agreement on both sides regarding the language but that was ultimately not approved by the APS Board,” city spokesperson Stephanie Marsh said in an email to Signal Akron.
Robinson told school board members at Monday night’s board meeting that he was “just trying to compromise” to be “able to get through this year here.” Board members weren’t interested in that.
“So that means between now and when this contract ends, if something should happen at schools where we have a police officer and we feel that our student has not been treated fairly, then we cannot ask that officer to remove themselves from our school, but we will have to contact the chief of police?” Board Member Barbara Sykes asked the superintendent.
“Yes, ma’am,” Robinson responded. His hands were tied on this, he explained, because of the issues in the collective bargaining agreement between the FOP and the city. He said he didn’t like the agreement either but that it was more important to secure SROs without the control than to potentially not have officers in schools.
“The students need to feel that we support them,” and school administrators need to be able to remove troublesome officers, Sykes told Robinson. “There is no way I can support this.”
Board Member Rene Molenaur chastised the proposal as “yet another instance of the board’s direction not being heard or followed.” Voting for it, and ceding control of who can and cannot work in its schools, would indicate the board doesn’t support its students, she said.
Gregory Harrison, Bruce Alexander and Board President Carla Jackson joined Sykes and Molenaur’s rejection of the contract. Diana Autry was the lone yes vote, explaining she personally didn’t like it but “there is a need to have [police in the] building.”
Jackson elaborated on her opposition in an email to Signal Akron.
“Ultimately, my decision to vote ‘No’ was based on my belief that the Board should retain the authority to act in the best interest of our schools and that a critical protection—our ability to remove an SRO if needed—should not be compromised, even in the short term,” Jackson wrote. “I remain committed to working collaboratively with the City and district leadership to reach an agreement that ensures school safety while also preserving the district’s oversight and accountability mechanisms.”
The grievance between Akron and the FOP
The FOP filed a grievance with the City of Akron days after McCormick punched the Firestone student and he was transferred to the “property room.”
The union believes the reassignment violated the collective bargaining agreement because they didn’t give the officer a seven-day notice, there was no “verifiable departmental emergency that existed to make this transfer,” the transfer wasn’t for disciplinary reasons, the officer and union weren’t given a written explanation, and the police chief didn’t order it.
“This is a result of the administration taking punitive action against Officer McCormick during a Use of Force investigation,” the FOP wrote in its filing. “Officer McCormick has not been provided the due process he is afforded by the CBA between the city and the FOP,”
Marsh said the grievance process is still ongoing.
In the meantime, Akron police officers are still serving in Akron schools, but no updated contract is in place.
