Responding to increased violence in the city’s Unit 4 school district, the Champaign City Council voted 7-1 Tuesday to look into appointing six police officers to work exclusively in the city’s schools.

The decision comes in the middle of a school year that has already seen more expulsions and suspensions than all of last year, Assistant Superintendent Ecomet Burley said.

Because of the increased violence, the Champaign police department has already assigned police officers to work overtime in schools. If Tuesday’s proposal is followed through to completion, the department will take three veteran officers and hire three new officers to create six school resource officer positions, one for each middle and high school in the city.

Two major incidents spurred many of the year’s suspensions, Burley said. In one, a large group of female students engaged in a fight that left several faculty members injured and resulted in the arrest of five students.

Burley said the overtime officers reduced December suspensions by 31 percent compared to last year. Deputy Police Chief Troy Daniels said full-time school resource officers would be able to develop a rapport with the students and staff and reduce violence further.

“(With the overtime officers), we are constantly getting new officers coming in and they can’t develop those relationships,” Daniels said.

Each new officer will cost approximately $305,000 per year, Daniels said. Under one possible payment plan, the city would pay for the three veteran officers and 25 percent of the three new officers. The remainder of the costs would be picked up by the Unit 4 school district.

School resource officers are used throughout Illinois, Daniels said, including in Urbana, which has had a police officer in its schools since 1993.

Daniels said he had heard from community members that are worried about armed, uniformed police officers in their schools. But he reassured parents that officers would be more of a resource than a threat.

“The goal of our officers is not to throw more kids in jail, I can absolutely guarantee you that,” Daniels said.

Councilman Michael La Due called the status quo in Champaign’s schools “unacceptable.”

“It takes a community to raise a child . but police officers in uniform are part of that community,” La Due said.