By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
At its meeting Wednesday at the John Stanford Center, the Seattle School Board discussed a pilot program that would bring a School Engagement Officer (SEO)—a uniformed police officer—onto the Garfield High School campus. The proposal has stirred strong emotions throughout the district, reflecting long-standing tensions around school safety, policing, and racial equity.
Although the board had been expected to vote on the pilot program during the meeting, members unanimously agreed to postpone the decision until their next scheduled session on October 8. A special meeting could be convened before then if the board chooses to act sooner. In the meantime, the district plans to continue gathering community input and developing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Seattle Police Department. The MOU will define the specific scope of the officer’s duties, emphasizing boundaries around discipline, safety, and student engagement.
The program is under consideration following repeated calls from Garfield students, parents, and community leaders for additional safety measures. One driving factor behind the proposal is the recent rise in on-campus violence, including the June 2024 shooting death of Garfield student Amomar Murphy Payne. These incidents have renewed concerns about student safety and the capacity of school staff to prevent or respond to violence.
Garfield principal Dr. Tarance Hart has voiced strong support for the initiative, citing the school’s prior experience with School Resource Officers (SROs)—a program discontinued in 2020. Hart believes that past success offers a model for how the new SEO position could function in today’s climate.
“Over the last four to five years our community has gone through a lot and experienced loss and community violence,” Hart said. “And Garfield has had a long-standing SRO program on campus that was successful by all measures—from a community sort of feedback to staff feedback.”
Unlike the former SROs, the proposed SEO would serve in a non-disciplinary, engagement-focused capacity. Rather than making arrests or issuing consequences, the officer would be expected to build relationships, engage in positive interactions with students, and help prevent incidents before they escalate.
“They’re trained and they’re not there to arrest or to discipline,” Hart explained. “They’re there to be a part of the community and be a trusted adult for students and to sort of support us on campus safety, which extends beyond just gun violence.”
Garfield parent and alumna Karin Zauggblack also spoke in support of the pilot. Drawing from her personal experience as both a student and a parent at Garfield, she expressed confidence that a well-integrated officer could contribute to a safer and more connected campus environment.
“I, having gone to Garfield as a student and then having been a parent in the Garfield community—there’s violence in our society and unfortunately violence in our schools when I was a student, there certainly is now,” Zauggblack said. “And I feel like Garfield has a history of a successful community police officer at the school.”
Zauggblack emphasized the importance of familiarity and presence in preventing campus threats.
“My sort of understanding and feeling is really that by [a] community officer getting to know the students … [they] can recognize when someone who is not a student, who is not supposed to be on campus, can be recognized, because
the community officer knows the school and knows the students,” said Zauggblack. “To me, it just seems like that’s an opportunity to work with organizations like Community Passageways and some of the other supports that we’ve been gathering to have at Garfield—more eyes on the school, more eyes on students.”
She also shared a personal reason for supporting the initiative.
“My daughter’s best friend was shot at the bus stop at Garfield and, well, she’s good, she made it,” Zauggblack said. “But also our community really still stands with Amar Murphy Payne’s family, just recognizing other students who have been victims of gun violence, both near Garfield and also further away.”
“I do feel comfortable with an officer in school,” added Zauggblack. “So I was here today to voice my opinion that I’d like them to approve it so that we can try it. It’s a pilot. So, a pilot program is an opportunity to then gather more data, gather more feedback, have people be able to voice opinions, pro and con, and really just see how it works.”
Acting Superintendent Fred Podesta echoed the need for clarity in the officer’s role and emphasized that the SEO’s responsibilities must be distinct from disciplinary action.
“There are strong calls for clear guidelines that separate the SEO’s role from disciplinary actions,” Podesta said, “ensuring that disciplinary issues remain with school administration.”
As the board moves forward with the proposal, community discussions will continue to shape the potential implementation of the SEO role at Garfield High School.
