Denver police will be back permanently on roughly a dozen campuses when students return from summer break but there is no agreement yet that establishes guardrails or expectations for the return of armed officers.

While the expense for deploying the officers is not yet known, the cost could be similar to the $1.2 million the city paid in 2018, according to a Denver Gazette analysis.

The full-time return of school resource officers marks the first since police were removed from campuses in the 2020-2021 school year.

Denver Public Schools Board of Education members with whom The Denver Gazette spoke Monday said they want the agreement with Denver police to include training with the National Association of School Resource Officers. At least one member wants a sunset clause to end the program should student citations spike again as a result of the reintroduction of police officers.

Board Vice President Auon’tai M. Anderson — who championed the removal of SROs in 2020 and then advocated for their return in the wake of school violence that rocked East High School — said he would like to see more than a mention of police training in the pending DPD agreement.

Among the items Anderson wants addressed is a sunset trigger, in which the agreement becomes void if the number of student citations hits or exceeds the level in 2020.

In 2019-20, there were 55 student arrests and 334 court summons issued across DPS, according to the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice.

“The superintendent has less than two weeks to make an (memorandum of understanding) MOU happen or the board should reconsider the reintroduction of SROs,” Anderson said.

Anderson said he intended to raise the issue at the board’s next meeting on Aug. 24, assuming an agreement had not been reached at the time.

Superintendent Alex Marrero is responsible for ironing out the language in a memorandum of understanding with the police department. The MOU will govern the return of SROs to campus.

School police have similar responsibilities as regular police officers in that they have the ability to make arrests and respond to calls for service.

Board President Xóchitl Gaytán said Monday the board is relying on Marrero to include language reflective of the board’s wishes.

“He knows where we all stand on the SRO issue and the MOU,” Gaytán said.

Gaytán added: “The SRO issue is really about the training for the specific officers coming from DPD into the DPS system.”

Specifically, Gaytán said she would want that training to better equip officers to interact fairly and equitably with minority students.

Director Scott Baldermann — who authored the resolution used to reintegrate SROs after two administrators were shot at East High School in March —agreed.

“I hope the upcoming MOU prioritizes building positive relationships between students and police officers,” Baldermann said in a text message. “I appreciate that the city is covering the expense so that the district can allocate funding for mental health services.”

In violation of a 2020 ban on police, Marrero unilaterally returned armed officers — temporarily — to the district’s comprehensive high schools in the wake of the March 22 shooting at East High, the district’s flagship high school.

Three years ago, DPS board members cut ties with the DPD and removed SROs because of what they described as over policing concerns and claims that their presence perpetuates what activists called the “school-to-prison pipeline.”

Some research has shown minority students too often receive harsher penalties than their white counterparts, a finding that has long worried advocates who contend this also later leads to greater incarceration rates.

“We don’t want to be over policed,” said Gaytán, whose two sons attended Denver schools.

Gaytán recalled — in the lead up to removing SROs — community meetings with parents angry about tickets for minor infractions, such as jaywalking.

“At the same time, how do we keep our kids safe?” Gaytán asked.

The struggle by board members with the magnitude of keeping schools safe when students bring guns to schools was apparent during a closed-door meeting in March after the shooting at East High.

During the meeting, Director Charmaine Lindsay, who favors bring back cops to campuses, asked, “What are they supposed to do if they find somebody with a gun? When there’s nobody at the school to offer either any kind of support or any kind of back up to the student that is carrying a gun?”

Lindsay also said her family members go to East High.

“And there’s at least 100 (guns) in the school every single day, that they can name at least 20 kids they know that have guns, including the kid that was arrested,” she said, arguing that “to say there is no deterrent from any kind of law enforcement” in unacceptable.

The school district has had cops on campuses since the 1990s, according to ChalkBeat.

In the 2019-20 school year — the last full year of SROs — officers were stationed at 18 middle and high schools. Of these, 13 campuses will have an SRO this fall.

In a split vote in June, the board opted to permanently return armed police to campuses, highlighting their conundrum over what some publicly framed as a binary cops-or-no-cops issue.

The MOU is supposed to establish between the district and police department a commitment to the specific principles, roles and responsibilities officers will assume on campus.

It is unclear, though, when the contract will be finalized.

District spokesman Doug Schepman did not know as of Monday.

Gaytán said she expects to see a draft of the MOU before it is finalized.

What is clear, is that the city of Denver will assume the expense of placing 14 police officers at 13 campuses.

“Chief (Ron) Thomas committed to providing those officers without reimbursement from DPS for that time period because he firmly believes that the SRO program increases school and student safety and helps to encourage better youth/police relationships,” Schepman said in an email to The Denver Gazette.

The cost has not yet been calculated.

But most the recent agreement — made for the 2018-2019 academic year — offers some clues. The price tag to deploy 18 SROs then was $1,292,382.

All things being equal and accounting for inflation, the cost to city to place 14 officers in district schools could be $1,218,644.