Phila. School District cuts 91 school police

The Philadelphia School District eliminated 91 school police jobs Friday in a cost-cutting move that brought the number of city schools without officers to 100.

Also cut were eight regional office jobs and six central office jobs. The district faces a $61 million budget hole that must be plugged by June.

The police cuts will save $617,000 - about 1 percent of necessary reductions.

District officials could not say Friday how much the other job eliminations would save, or the total that remains to be cut.

Twenty-five additional schools lost their police officers as a result of the move.

Nine of the 10 schools considered "persistently dangerous" under the federal No Child Left Behind law kept their full complement of police officers; one school lost one officer.

District officials said they would soon release the full list of schools without an officer.

Cut on Friday were 82 per-diem officers, who worked full-time but without benefits, and nine officers who were on track to become permanent officers, Chief Inspector Myron Patterson said.

Patterson, the district's head of school safety, on loan from the city police force, said he had shuffled his deployment plan. He sent back to schools some officers who had been stationed at district headquarters and others who helped with training and truancy.

"I'm confident that our men and women will step up to the plate," he said.

Roving school police units and city police cover schools without officers, periodically checking in at those buildings, Patterson said.

The district has had a long-standing problem with school safety. The Inquirer investigative series "Assault on Learning" found that violence in city schools was widespread and underreported, with 30,000 serious incidents over the last five school years. Those findings were corroborated by a district blue-ribbon panel on safety.

Michael Lodise, head of the school police officers' union, has said he thinks that the newest reductions, which come on top of cuts made last year, will further impair school safety.

In a policy shift put in place this school year, school officers are now responsible for calling city police when crimes are committed. Patterson said he did not think the loss of officers would lead to more reporting problems.

"I don't see it that way," Patterson said. Even in the 75 schools that had already lost their officers, "they have been reporting. The checks and balances have been going on pretty well. The principals have been reporting."