ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The Rochester City School District is preparing to shift away from using the Rochester Police Department for school safety and instead rely on internal security.
The district’s contract with RPD ends in March. District officials presented a new safety plan to the school board that focuses on enhancing internal security, adding school safety officers, creating another mobile unit, and establishing a centralized command center.
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Jacob Scott, chief operations officer for the district, said, “This is basically just to strengthen how we communicate across the district, of course, during the school day, but also after hours, which unfortunately, we are seeing an uptick in a lot of vandalism within our buildings and also our fields during athletic events.”
More details on the plan
A proposed location for the command center was not included in this week’s presentation, and district officials said some elements of the plan will not be made public. The plan also prioritizes continued training in de-escalation, student engagement and trauma-informed practices, and adds a new associate director of safety and security who will oversee the command center and monitor threat assessments and safety audits.
Superintendent Dr. Eric Rosser is working to get local community partners involved, with those discussions expected to finish by December or January. The district is also phasing out police patrols during student pick up and drop off, instead focusing on internal safety enhancements.
The estimated cost for the new plan is almost half a million dollars. Rosser pointed out that the district will no longer spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the police contract. The funding for the new plan is already in the 2026-27 budget, originally set aside for police services, and about $15,000 will go toward technology upgrades for the command center.
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How the command center would work
Scott explained how the command center would work, saying, “We may see students lingering around a school building after hours. We can then deploy the mobile unit or try to contact someone that might be in the school many times. If an adult or someone, especially from the district, can actually just present themselves, sometimes that provides a deterrent for individuals kind of just lingering around. But for the command center, it’s really for us to be able to, in time, see the possibility of an incident or something like that occurring, and for us to be able to deploy individuals to the scene more rapidly and quickly.”
Rosser said the district will contact police if the command center sees a serious security concern. “If there is an incident that is going down, it also gives us the ability to centrally contact 911 in RPD for their assistance,” Rosser said.
The district is also looking into new grant funding, and the only recurring spending is expected to be salaries for the new school safety officers and the associate director position. Scott said the van needed for the mobile unit may not need to be purchased, which could save money.
How to weigh in on the plan
The local group F.I.G.H.T. and the Green Party of Monroe County are holding a meeting on Saturday, Oct. 17, to allow community members to weigh in on the plan. The meeting begins at noon at F.I.G.H.T. Village, 186 Ward Street and Superintendent Rosser plans to be there.
The district is also launching a new task force of students, parents, and staff to review spending, school programs, and potential cost savings as it prepares the next budget, with recommendations due to the superintendent and school board by Jan. 30. You can learn more about the RCSD budgeting process here.
RCSD shares details on plan to rely on internal security, rather than police, for school safety WHEC.com.
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