Denver City Wire

Colorado's Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl wants to make sure students in the Centennial State are safe at school, and she's come up with a plan to accomplish it.

Ganahl, who served on the Committee on School Safety and Youth in Crisis in 2015 under former Gov. John Hickenlooper, worked with a group called Moms Fight Back to create the "School Safety 360 Pilot." The plan aims to evaluate and improve school safety which includes giving schools "safety scores" that identify areas that the district could do better.

"There are so many good intentioned people working on this issue, and for that I am so grateful," Ganahl wrote in an opinion piece for Campfire Colorado. "But before we can cure the illness, we must diagnose the disease. In the meantime, we should not allow the Democrat leadership to remove school resource officers from schools when they are needed more than ever. And we should not let them pass legislation that makes it hard for administrators and teachers to deal with discipline in schools as they have tried to do."

Two years ago, Denver Public Schools removed all school resource officers (SRO) from the district citing the belief that "close proximity of law enforcement to students on campuses directly contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline." According to a statement on the district's website, studies have shown minority students arrested for infractions in school are more likely to end up in the "criminal system" as adults.

According to Colorado Newsline, Boulder Valley Public Schools also removed its SROs, but Jefferson County Public Schools said it wasn't considering eliminating the district's 40 SROs.

"In Jeffco the conversation has been just great appreciation for what they offer and provide," John McDonald, Jefferson County Public Schools executive director of school safety, told Colorado Newsline. "Our principals and our school teams have very, very strong relationships with the SROs. The kids have incredibly powerful relationships with the SROs."

In the past five decades, Colorado has had 28 school shootings with 79 total victims, KDVR reported, citing data from a Naval Postgraduate School study.

According to NBC News, the most recent shooting at a Colorado school took place in May 2019 at the STEM School Highlands Ranch. Two students, ages 16 and 18, were accused of plotting the attack for weeks. Eighteen-year-old Kendrick Castillo was killed in the shooting. 

In response to the STEM school shooting, Gov. Jared Polis (D-CO) issued a statement that said, "We are making all of our public safety resources available to assist the Douglas County Sheriff's Department in their efforts to secure the site and evacuate the students. We are monitoring the situation in real time. The heart of Colorado is with the victims and their families."

Polis did not respond to the Denver City Wire's request for an interview about his plans to improve school safety.

Polis faces Ganahl in the upcoming November general election. According to Ballotpedia, she defeated Greg Lopez in the June Republican primary.