Police Officers In All Schools Now, Board Says

School Police

At the the Robertson County School board meeting tonight the Vice Chairman Jeff White (who is also the Ridgetop Police Chief) made a motion to put police officers in 11 of the Robertson County schools that do not have SRO’s at the moment.  An SRO is a police officer with special school resource training. It is meant to be a temporary measure until (hopefully) permanent SRO’s can be placed in all the schools in the county. Its overall purpose is to offer protection to the schools now. The officers will be used until the end of the school year.

The school board was able to come up with $50,000 of school money to put toward this project to get it off the ground. This is separate from the funding and plans for regular SRO’s to be put in place permanently. According to Robertson County Schools communications coordinator Jim Bellis this is a proactive move by the board, it shows that the safety of our children is a top priority.

The guards will be real (off duty) police officers from within the county. They will draw them from different police departments and the county sheriffs dept as well. Jeff White made the motion based on the assurance that Dan Whitlow could find the $50,000 to fund the officers in the budget. Lyle Payne seconded the motion, Jerry Converse was the only one who opposed the motion.

There are too many variables to determine how long the 50k will last but it’s estimated that fully funding officers in all 11 schools to the end of the school year will take about $220,000. The trick will be to see if the county commissioners can find more money elsewhere once the 50k runs out.

For greater detail on what we are paying now for SRO’s and the cost to put SRO’s in all the schools Smokey spoke with County Sheriff Bill Holt who provided a breakdown of the costs.http://youtu.be/R1qxHB_UjYg

School Resource Officers

To meet the current SRO’s supplied by the Sheriff’s department click here.

 

One Response

  1. dm29 February 5, 2013
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