Natomas seeks SRO return
- Natomas Unified’s superintendent asked Sacramento to restore full‑time school resource officers after a recent school shooting. - The district sought reinstatement of a contract that previously assigned police officers to campuses. - District leaders argued classroom management cannot substitute for campus security capacity when safety threats arise. (police1.com)
Days after a student was killed at Natomas High School, Natomas Unified asked Sacramento to put police officers back on its campuses. (police1.com) Superintendent Robyn Castillo sent Sacramento City Manager Maraskeshia Smith a message on Tuesday, April 14, requesting the city restore the district’s school resource officer contract. That contract had assigned three full-time officers and a supervising sergeant to Natomas schools. (aol.com) The request followed the April 10 shooting at Natomas High School in Sacramento. The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said a student shot 16-year-old De’Jon Sledge during a “violent attempted robbery” and treated the shooter’s actions as self-defense. (globalordnancenews.com) Natomas Unified had already lost its school resource officers before the shooting. Sacramento police said in October 2025 that staffing shortages would force the department to reassign those officers to patrol starting in January 2026. (edsource.org) The district’s police contract was worth $2.1 million and covered four positions across its 16-campus system. Sacramento police said the staffing crunch left the department unable to keep filling the deal while meeting citywide emergency response needs. (edsource.org) Natomas Unified replaced that setup with its own security staff. The district said it hired three school safety officers to serve its high schools daily and added campus safety specialists at Inderkum High, Natomas High and Natomas Middle School. (natomasunified.org) District leaders said those employees were meant to support intervention, prevention, parking lots and campus perimeters. Castillo told city leaders that classroom management staff “do not replace” the capacity that police officers bring during serious safety threats. (natomasunified.org; police1.com) City officials said they received the district’s request and are reviewing it. Sacramento County Sheriff Jim Cooper separately called on campuses to have more school resource officers after the Natomas shooting. (abc10.com; fox40.com) What happens next is up to Sacramento City Hall: whether the city can rebuild a school police detail it said five months ago it no longer had enough officers to staff. (edsource.org; abc10.com)
