A Very Good Idea Only With Trained & Competent Cops | Sheriff & Superintendent: Armed Resource Officers in Every School

Sheriff & Superintendent: Armed Resource Officers in Every School

12-21.2012 by Julie Montanaro

Leon County’s Sheriff and school superintendent are calling on the governor to pay for a school resource officer in every school.  And a city commissioner is now calling for police patrols in the interim.The requests come on the heels of a massacre that killed 20 children and 6 adults at an elementary school in Connecticut.There are 23 shool resource officers in Leon County. Most high schools and middle schools have one full time, and the elementary schools share.

Now the Leon County Sheriff and School Superintendent are asking the governor to find finding for a full time officer at every school.

“When it comes to protecting our children I don’t think we need to spend a lot of time talking about cost. We need to take action,” Superintendent Jackie Pons said.

Leon County and Leon County Schools split the 2.3 million dollar tab for school resource officers each year.

Tally up the salary, benefits, car and computer and it’s about $100 thousand dollars for every SRO.  That’s why the plea comes now as the governor crafts his budget.

“This is what they’re elected to do is to find a mechanism to protect our children and make sure we have the safest schools we could possibly have.”

City Commisisoner Scott Maddox says he’ll take a proposal to fellow commissioners in January asking for regular and directed patrols at elementary schools until the legislature has a chance to debate a more permanent solution.

“Our TPD officers can start right now visiting elementary schools in the their districts. We can do directed patrols,” Maddox said. “They get out of the car, they go inside talk to parents, teachers, and school administrators and they get to talk to the kids to make sure that everybody feels sage and there’s a law enforcement presence at our elementary schools.”

Maddox will present the idea at the city’s January 9th meeting.