August 13, 2023
By: Dwayne Page
The number of DeKalb SRO’s will remain at five for now!
During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the Board of Education adopted a state required Memorandum of Understanding regarding the state grant funded School Resource Officer Program.
Under state law, the MOU serves as the template for the SRO program authorized by Public Chapter 418 of the 113th Tennessee General Assembly and must be executed between a local law enforcement entity (Sheriff’s Department) and the LEA (DeKalb School District) and presented to the Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security as part of the application process for grant funding. That agreement has been finalized and approved.
The purpose of this MOU is to set forth the obligations of the Parties with respect to the placement of School Resource Officers (“SROs”) in schools and with respect to planning and funding related thereto for the purpose of providing a law enforcement presence at each school.
“The MOU we have with the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department is part of the new law the Governor has put in place for support of school resource officers in our county providing one in each school. It has been signed by me, the sheriff, and the county mayor. It is in place and our SROs are already actively working,” said Director of Schools Patrick Cripps.
As in the past all DeKalb County Schools continue to have one school resource officer, but no more SROs are planned at this time.
Different from the past is that all five SROs are now funded by the state rather than the county and school district.
Sheriff Patrick Ray has said he would like to see another SRO added at the high school but whether that should ever be funded either by the school district or a partnership between the county and school board has yet to be determined.
Meanwhile, Director Cripps publicly thanked local law enforcement agencies for their participation in the “Intruder Drill” walkthrough of the schools last week.
“I do want to thank the sheriff and chief of police and their officers and deputies. We have been doing Intruder Drills this week and we have one more to do. I want to thank them for going through our schools during their drill to help keep our kids safe,” he said.
Director Cripps also repeated a warning he first issued in April that any threat made toward a school, even if it is a prank or joke, will not be tolerated and students will face full consequences.
“I want to reiterate to our parents to talk to their kids about things they say. They may be saying things jokingly, but it is imperative that they talk with them about what they say. There’s a new law out and it says anybody that threatens mass casualties is committing a zero-tolerance offense. That’s a year
expulsion. We are taking this seriously. You can’t take any threat lightly, so we ask all parents to talk with their kids about that. I know how kids are. They will say things and think nothing of it but their neighbor next to them may take it seriously. We have to take all threats seriously, so parents please help us with that situation by talking to your kids,” said Director Cripps.
In other business, the board approved a pay rate adjustment for drivers of school buses on field trips and sports events.
“Its been a struggle getting bus drivers to run daily routes but now is the time of the year when we are doing ball trips and field trips and its getting harder to find people to do that too. This starts my ninth year as director and during that time and even before that the pay rate has not been adjusted so I ask that you consider those increases as we discussed in the workshop so that we don’t have sports teams waiting on a bus and no bus shows,” said Director Cripps.
In his monthly personnel report, Director Cripps reported that the following have been hired since July:
Bethany Poss-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Reagan Owens-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Victoria Stanley-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Mary Cantrell-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Ashley Dugaw-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Alivia Jared-teacher at DCHS
Lesa Davis-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
April Moore-teacher at Smithville Elementary School
Cole- Dziekiewicz-teacher at DeKalb Middle School
Colter Norris-teacher at DeKalb Middle School
Caitlin Fox, Speech- Countywide
Leave of Absence as requested: Misty Agee and Sarah Storey
Resignation/Retirement: Loree Hall, teacher at Northside Elementary School.