As districts sever ties with police, this Bothell school is fighting to keep its cop 39%
By Noel Gasca0%
6/3/2026, 9:15:53 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 31 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Anecdotal, and Self-Serving Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 18.1% saturation with 139 hits. Analysis detected 1,439 faulty-reasoning hits from 770 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 44.3% and a BS Rank of 39% (13,541 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 61.90% of the article peer group.
Hundreds of Bothell High School students stood outside Bothell City Hall last month, carrying signs and chanting "Vote them out!
Vote them out!
Vote them out!"
They were there speaking in support of Officer Garrett Ware, a popular school resource officer who has worked at the school since 2017.
Students say Ware does more than just monitor the school’s campus — he makes an effort to connect with people, and checks in with kids who are sitting alone or wandering the hallways at lunch.
He goes to school concerts and sporting events.
But in May, the Northshore School Board voted 4-1 to not renew its contract with the Bothell Police Department, drawing the ire of some Bothell High School students and parents.
(Bothell High School is in the Northshore School District.)
Before casting her “no” vote at the May school board meeting, Board Director Hân Trần explained her reasoning.
“I’m not able to support the renewal of this contract because this district owes our community something more comprehensive, more equitable, and more empowering to all community members,” Trần said.
A school resource officer — or SRO — is a police officer trained in school-based law enforcement and crisis response.
RELATED: Examining the effectiveness of armed school resource officers
In Washington, they can make arrests, and are supposed to keep an eye on gangs and drugs within schools, while also building positive relationships with students.
There are no federal regulations for school resource officers; there are also no mandates requiring schools to have an SRO on their campus.
Washington state codified the role of SROs in 2019, and in 2021, established program training requirements for school districts who chose to have an SRO.
But many districts have ended or restructured their SRO programs since 2020, after George Floyd’s murder generated protests against police brutality towards Black and brown Americans.
Critics of SRO programs argue that the presence of police in schools actually increases the chances of Black and brown students ending up behind bars.
Instead, they believe schools should invest in counselors and mental health professionals.
But some Bothell High School students see it differently.
Brianna Pan, a senior at Bothell High, feels that the board chose their own political agendas over the experiences of Bothell High students when they decided to not renew Officer Ware’s contract.
“They’re not representing their community,” Pan said.
“They’re not being bridge builders that should be between both sides.”
In 2024, a survey conducted by the Northshore School District found that almost 79% of student respondents agreed or strongly agreed that the SRO program promoted student safety.
As an Asian American, Pan said she's "never felt racially disadvantaged having an SRO officer on campus."
Northshore School Board members declined to comment when KUOW reached out.
Claudine Miller has two sons attending Bothell High, and she also volunteers at the school.
She believes the school board’s decision around what to do with Bothell’s SRO program shouldn't be rooted in what other districts are doing.
“We are not all the high schools in the region, we are an individual high school that has a program that has worked very well for us for years,” Miller said, adding the program “feels like an anomaly in some ways.”
Miller worries the high school will be less safe without Ware next year.
Officer Ware declined KUOW’s request for an interview, but said in an email he was “incredibly disappointed” in the school board’s decision.
Mike Johnson, Ware’s captain at the Bothell Police Department, answered KUOW’s questions about how the SRO program operates at Bothell High School, but declined to comment on the board’s vote to end the program.
The department is in a tricky situation, according to Johnson, because they don’t want to sound like they’re lobbying the board or “strong arming” them into making policy decisions.
Other districts in King County have also ended their contracts with local police departments.
Highline Public Schools has not used SROs since 2021.
In Seattle, the school district ended its SRO program in 2020.
Some community members want it back, in light of community violence around Garfield High School.
RELATED: No cops at Garfield High.
Seattle School Board rejects plan to revive resource officer program
Some districts still have SROs, like Mercer Island and Federal Way.
For now, it appears unlikely that Officer Ware will return to Bothell High School in the fall.
But the fight isn’t over — community members have launched a recall campaign against Northshore School Board members who voted to end the SRO program.
Speakers
5speakers34%attributed speech511writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageHân Trần
30 attributed words12% of attributed speech78% writer coverage
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