NEW ULM — New Ulm Public School Resource Officer Andrew Achman reported slow progress on the use of force issue plaguing SROs across Minnesota during a School Board Work Session Thursday.

Achman recapped the legislative change. On Aug. 1, legislation passed came into effect. The changes limit what SRO’s can do to restrain students in potentially dangerous situations. These changes were also unclear, leading to confusion and uncertainty surrounding what an SRO can or can’t do in a given situation.

“As an agent of the school it pretty much prohibited me completely from doing any use of force on kids,” he said. “In general use of force here in New Ulm is pretty rare. With the language changed it put me in a lot of civil and criminal liability, because I have to go off my guidance from our legal counsel or training.”

Achman said the changes were unknown to most, and he only found out two weeks before the school year started. Many SROs pulled out of schools across Minnesota due to these issues, and Achman revealed he considered pulling out as well. But he decided to honor his commitment to the school and stay. He said initial responses from the Attorney General’s office address issues from the school but not from law enforcement. A second meeting yielded some leeway.

“What ended up happening is we went with new bulletins going forward,” Achman said “We’re closer than we were before [as far as] getting back to normal. With this push, I agreed to stay on now for the rest of the school year.”

After this, Achman said little progress has been made. At their current standstill, the plan is to wait for the February legislative session to lobby for changes. Achman said he sees the situation playing out in one of two ways.

“Either one, they’re not going to do anything,” he said. “We’re gonna go as is and wait for a court case from an incident between an SRO and a student. It’s gonna have to go to court, and we’re going to get a final court determination on the law. That will probably take years. The second option is the legislature changes the law [in our favor] and we make modifications.”

Matt Ringhofer and Steve Gag recently attended a Minnesota School Board Association delegate assembly. They said one of the biggest topics of conversation was making needed changes to recently passed legislation. Ringhofer said there was statewide support for SROs. Gag believes the momentum is heading in their favor.

“It was a very good conversation,” he said. “It was an interesting assembly where people stood up at the microphone and talked. At least 10 people got to talk in support when some things go by with no conversation.”

Ringhofer added 113 delegates at the meeting voted in support of changing legislative language to support the SROs. Both Gag and Ringhofer agreed it was a good sign.