Ottumwa Community School District Policing Facts

Overview¹

According to the U.S. Department of Education, our nation’s schools are experiencing elevated rates of school-related arrests and referrals to law enforcement.² Expert research has connected the presence of armed police officers in schools with these elevated rates³, creating criminal records that follow students around for the rest of their lives and making lifelong access to employment, housing, and social services much more difficult. 

In Iowa, nearly 1 in 5 secondary⁴ public schools reported having sworn law enforcement officers onsite.⁵ Secondary schools in the Ottumwa Community School District are among that number. 

Data from the most recently available U.S. Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) provides a look at how policing in Ottumwa's secondary schools disproportionately impacted Black students and students with disabilities⁶ in 2017-18, in addition to what student support professionals were available for students during that school year.

Ottumwa School-Related Arrests

According to the most recently available CRDC data (2017-18), Black students and students with disabilities in secondary schools in the Ottumwa Community School District were subject to school-related arrests at disparate rates compared to their white and non-disabled peers.

• Black students were arrested at 6.0 times⁷ the rate of white students.
• Students with disabilities were arrested at 1.4 times the rate of students without disabilities.

Ottumwa School-Related Referrals to Law Enforcement⁹

As with arrests, Black students and students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement at disparate rates in Ottumwa Community School District’s secondary schools compared to their white and non-disabled peers according to the most recently available CRDC data (2017-18).

• Black students were referred to law enforcement at 5.6 times the rate of white students.
• Students with disabilities were referred to law enforcement at 2.0 times the rate of students without disabilities.

Ottumwa School Support Professional Ratios

Expert organizations¹⁰ recommend a certain staff-to-student ratio to ensure students receive sufficient support and resources. Ottumwa Community School District did not meet these recommended ratios for school-based counselors, social workers, or psychologists during the 2017-18 school year.

1. This document relies heavily on the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), 2017-18. This data is reported by public school agencies (districts, charters, vocation-tech schools) to the U.S. Department of Education, https://ocrdata.ed.gov/ The ACLU of Iowa recognizes both the limitations of this dataset due to its age and challenges inherent to self-reported data. The CRDC remains the most recent and comprehensive dataset for the national school policing landscape despite these limitations, particularly due to lack of data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic. This document also utilizes analysis of the 2017-18 CRDC by The UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies, https://schooldisciplinedata.org/ccrr/docs/Final_Disabling_Inequity_Repo....
2. U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection, 2017-18, https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/crdc-exclusionary-school....
3. Research on the Impact of School Policing, End Zero Tolerance, https://www.endzerotolerance.org/impact-of-school-policing.
4. Secondary schools defined as 5-8, 6-8, 7-9, 6-12, 9-12, 10-12, and 9th grade academies to align with UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies definition, https://schooldisciplinedata.org/ccrr/docs/Final_Disabling_Inequity_Repo....
5. Calculated using U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, Civil Rights Data Collection, 2017-18, Public Use File. This data is reported by public school agencies (districts, charters, vocation-tech schools) to the US Department of Education, https://ocrdata.ed.gov/.
6. “Students with disabilities” refers to students receiving Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) services.
7. All data calculations in this document are rounded to the nearest tenth (0.1).
8. Calculating arrest and referral rates per 100,000 students allows more intuitive comparison between demographic groups, even if those groups differ in size (for example, there are significantly more students without disabilities enrolled in Iowa schools than students with disabilities).
9. A "referral" occurs when a school employee reports a student to any law enforcement agency or officer, including a school police officer or security staff member for an incident that happens at school, during a school-related event or while taking school transportation, regardless of whether official action is taken. All arrests are referrals. But not all referrals lead to arrests, https://crdc.communities.ed.gov/#communities/pdc/documents/17270.
10. See footnotes 11, 13, and 15.
11. American School Counselor Association, https://schoolcounselor.org/About-School-Counseling/School-Counselor-Rol....
12. Calculated by dividing reported student enrollment (4,450) by reported number of FTE counselors (9.9), https://ocrdata.ed.gov/profile/9/district/31739/summary.
13. School Social Work Association of America, https://www.sswaa.org/ssw-model.
14. Ottumwa Community School District Staffing and Finance Summary, 2017-18 CRDC, https://ocrdata.ed.gov/profile/9/school/468669/teachersandcounselors.
15. National Association of School Psychologists, https://www.nasponline.org/research-and-policy/policy-priorities/critica....