Statement from Chief of Police - SROs Agreement

Date: September 18, 2023
Time: 4:45 PM
Contact: Dale Hager, Chief of Police 651-429-8552, dhager@whitebearlake.org

Statement from Chief of Police Dale Hager

The White Bear Lake Police Department has a long and successful history of working collaboratively with the White Bear Lake Area Schools to uphold a safe environment for students, teachers, staff, parents and other stakeholders in our community by contractually providing school resource officer services and special event policing services.

The City of White Bear Lake has fully supported having officers in our schools. Unfortunately, the limitations, created by the 2023 legislature, serve as a barrier for us to continue the same relationship effectively and has placed school resource officers in an untenable situation. Therefore, we will regretfully, suspend our existing agreement and discontinue providing school resource officer services in White Bear Lake schools until the matter is addressed by the legislature.

While our school resource officers will not be working under contract, we are committed to working closely with our school district. Therefore, during school hours, police officers will respond for school district related calls and will be encouraged to conduct regular walk-throughs at schools daily, as often as our call-load permits.

Additionally, for the remainder of this football season, we will continue to provide officers at White Bear Lake home football games, to help school district staff, in providing a safe environment for all. These specialty officers will not be contracted agents of the school district, rather they will be provided at the expense of the City of White Bear Lake.

Our hope is that, someday, we are able to reinstate our agreement. Until that time, in light of the current legislation, it is not in the best interest of our officers to continue with the requirements of the agreement. We look forward to a resolution by the Governor and legislature, and we will continue to support both our officers and White Bear Lake Area Schools, within the new confines of the law.