Understanding School Safety

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GSSW Prof. Mónica Gutiérrez is studying the influences on school safety for Latine and Black high schoolers

News •

Faculty & Staff, Research & Scholarship •

March 30, 2026

In the wake of widespread protests of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the Denver Public Schools (DPS) board voted unanimously to end the district’s contract with the Denver Police Department and phase school resource officers (SROs) out of Denver schools. However, following a shooting inside East High School, in 2023 the board voted to bring SROs back.

That unusual policy reversal intrigued University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) Assistant Professor Mónica Gutiérrez, who notes that very few school districts in the nation have removed SROs only to subsequently reintroduce them. Gutiérrez’s wondered how SROs influence Latine and Black high school students’ experiences of policing and structural and institutional conditions of belonging in school.

In partnership with DPS students, families, staff, and administrators, Gutiérrez is using a QuantCrit approach (that is, applying critical race theory to quantitative data) to explore the role of SROs in Denver Public Schools. The mixed-methods study includes analysis of archival policy records and administrative data on disciplinary practices and data from focus groups conducted with students, families, teachers, front-office staff, and maintenance and cafeteria staff from four DPS high schools. Schools were invited to participate based on study criteria indicating that they reflect sites where the relationship between safety practices, student experiences, and racialized discipline can be meaningfully examined.

The project, Safety Beyond Surveillance, is funded by a DU PROF Grant and the University’s Latinx Center. Gutiérrez explains that the project’s research team is supported by a transdisciplinary advisory group, including Morgridge College of Education Professor Maria Salazar and Department of Sociology & Criminology Professor Hava Gordon. Academic collaborators include Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology Assistant Professor Kamilah Legette and Tom Romero, a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Boyd School of Law. Gutiérrez says, “Their expertise in education, sociology, law, school discipline, behavioral health, and racial inequities in public education has strengthened the project’s ability to examine school safety from multiple perspectives and to ground the work in both rigorous scholarship and community relevance.”

Gutiérrez’s community-engaged research prioritizes relationship-building, reciprocity, and shared ownership of the research process. For the SRO project, focus groups are conducted as pláticas, which she explains are an organic, dialogue-centered interview method rooted in everyday conversation and cultural practice. The groups begin by drawing maps of what they consider to be “safe spaces” in schools: the places they would go if violence occurred. Gutiérrez will then compare those maps to what the school considers safe spaces to see where the understanding of safety converges or diverges. Although data collection is still underway, Gutiérrez can already see a gap between how the district defines “safety” and how students experience it.

For example, federal school safety policy shapes how DPS operationalizes school safety, prioritizing hardened infrastructure such as classrooms designated for shelter-in-place protocols. However, Latine and Black students may experience everything from microaggressions to disproportionate discipline to physical violence in school, and they and their families express that no place is safe. Gutiérrez says participants also express a fear of immigration actions.

She adds that students emphasize who is safe, not where is safe — safe people versus safe places. “There are certain places, like the cafeteria, which are deemed safe, but only because of staff that work there.” That is why Gutiérrez has included maintenance and cafeteria staff in her research. She explains that such support staff often share racial and ethnic identities with students, speak their language, and understand their culture. “When we think about school safety from a public perspective, we don’t include them, but they are cultural touchpoints for students.”

School Safety versus Surveillance

Gutiérrez says students also define safety in emotional terms, such as places where they feel respected and heard rather than surveilled. They question whether surveillance is truly needed and whether community members can rely on and take care of one another. “They’re thinking deeper than we know about this topic, and the question they’re posing back to me is, ‘What is the point of surveillance? What are we getting out of it?’ They have not seen or felt like the schools are safer with more surveillance.”

Gutiérrez notes that her policy research shows that surveillance has not been the intention of SROs, whose charge is to provide resources to students and their families. Although students report that some SROs build strong relationships with students and fulfil the “resource” role, the 2023 return of armed police officers in schools has shifted the dynamic, particularly since SROs can and do refer students to police. “That’s an added layer that students view as surveillance — the ultimate surveillance — because if something happens, they could be charged with a criminal offense.” The project’s qualitative data analysis will include examining how, when, and why Denver police become involved, and what the outcomes are.

Broadly, Gutiérrez’s work “focuses on the intersections of place, power, and belonging, particularly in communities navigating displacement and gentrification. The work asks not only what is happening to communities but also what communities are already doing in response and how research can support those efforts.” She recently founded the multidisciplinary Community Collab Lab as a way to engage undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty and community scholars in the United States and Mexico to advance collaborative, equity-oriented research that informs policy, practice, and social change. She emphasizes that those who are most affected by social problems are also the most knowledgeable about solutions. “Our work is built on that conviction. Centering community knowledge, justice-oriented scholarship, and collaborative inquiry, we work alongside residents, organizers, and practitioners to address pressing social issues and support more equitable futures.”

Gutiérrez’s recent related work includes “‘Creo que mi meta es ayudar a mi comunidad y ver un cambio’: Latinas/os remaking home through community-engaged mapping” and “Virtual Photovoice and Social Work: Unveiling CRT and LatCrit Insights into Latinx Communities in the Southwest During COVID-19” in the Journal of Community Practice and a co-authored chapter on Latina/o/x critical race theory (LatCrit) in the forthcoming book “Critical Race Theory in Social Work.” In recognition of the SRO project’s methodological approach and youth-centered focus, Gutiérrez was recently selected for the William T. Grant Foundation Early-Career Reviewer Program. In 2024, the Association for Community Organization and Social Action recognized Gutiérrez’s community-based and relational research with an Early Career Award. Beyond formal recognition, she says, “One of the highest honors in this work is the trust students and families place in the research process. Being invited into families’ homes and forming relationships with students that enable them to share their experiences is something I deeply value.”

Gutiérrez hopes her SRO research will inform the development of DPS’s Safety Plan, producing policies and interventions that center family and student voices and experiences of safety. She says, “Schools across the country continue to grapple with questions of safety, racial equity, and student well-being. In DPS, those questions are especially pressing, given the district’s decision to remove and later reinstate school resource officers. That makes this a particularly important moment to examine how safety is experienced by students, families, and the broader school community.”

Returning to her overall interests around place, power, and belonging, Gutiérrez adds, “Displacement is not only as a physical removal from a place; it also is a social and institutional process. You don’t have to physically be moved, displaced from a place. You can still be in place in your neighborhood, in your school, and feel like you don’t belong due to structural and institutional policies.”

She adds, “Folks can still experience exclusion, loss of belonging, increased surveillance, or diminished power in place, in the area where they still remain. In the context of school, that framework helps us think about how students may be physically present but made to feel alienated or pushed out through everyday institutional practices, like surveillance and policing. If students aren’t feeling safe, seen, or respected at school, that’s a tough place to spend eight hours of your day.”

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