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The number of school-based officers at LPS would grow to 14 in the 2023-24 school year, which begins Monday, under an amended interlocal agreement with the city that went before the Lincoln Board of Education for initial consideration Tuesday.

The cost of the school resource program — which puts officers in the city’s middle and high schools — would also grow to $677,616 for the 2023-24 school year, a 4.72% increase from last year. The agreement stipulates that the cost to LPS cannot grow more than 5% year over year.

A threat-assessment officer is also included under the contract, which covers the period between Sept. 1 and Aug. 31, 2024.

One Lincoln Police officer is assigned to each high school — a practice around for years — but a 2018 interlocal agreement added six officers to the district’s 12 middle schools.

That agreement — called Safe and Successful Kids — was created in the wake of the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, to bolster school security.

Opponents, however, have long argued that adding officers would exacerbate the so-called school-to-prison pipeline by criminalizing what otherwise would be school discipline matters that disproportionately affect students of color.

A memorandum of understanding created as part of the 2018 interlocal agreement requires LPS and the Lincoln Police Department to collect yearly data on the program — including on student-officer interactions, calls to service in schools and juvenile referrals and disparity metrics.

Board members Annie Mumgaard and Barb Baier, who have been critical of the program in the past, signaled their support for the amended agreement, but raised concerns about incomplete data due to the pandemic.

Mumgaard also said she disliked how the board was asked to approve the agreement before the yearly report is made available in November.

“When we get that data in November, that needs to be brought back and put into perspective with perhaps some of our behavior goals that we’re going to be working on as well as perspective with our ‘All Means All’ (equity) goals and so forth,” Mumgaard said.

Board member Kathy Danek said administrators and officers do a good job of delineating responsibilities in a building to ensure discipline remains in the school’s hands.

“If it is a criminal act, the school resource officer takes care of it. If it’s a behavior act, it’s the school’s responsibility,” she said.

The Lincoln Board of Education will vote on the amended agreement at its Aug. 22 meeting. Board President Lanny Boswell was excused Tuesday.