April 12, 2024
By: Dwayne Page
Another new school resource officer position is being created for the DeKalb County School District to be filled by a female officer starting with the 2024-25 school year bringing the total number of SROs locally to six. The other current five SROs, funded by the state, are all men assigned one each to Smithville Elementary, Northside Elementary, DeKalb West, DeKalb Middle, and DeKalb County High School.
During Thursday night’s regular monthly meeting, the Board of Education voted 6-1 to fund in the 2024-25 budget at the request of Sheriff Patrick Ray, a new SRO to serve primarily as a rover between DeKalb County High School and DeKalb Middle School. Board member Danny Parkerson was the lone vote against the move. Although funded by the school district, the new school resource officer, like the other five, will be employed directly by the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department and the funds for the positions directed into the sheriff’s budget.
Director of Schools Patrick Cripps said he supports the addition of a new SRO position.
“Anytime you talk about kids you want safety first and our goal is to provide every resource that we can to make them feel safe when they come to school. Having another SRO from the sheriff’s department in the school just reinforces that commitment. We also want to put as many positive role models in the schools as we can. When those kids see a friendly face (SRO) they can identify with at school and outside of school that’s just a win-win for them and our community,” said Director Cripps.
“I want to thank Director of Schools Cripps and the school board for giving us this position,” said Sheriff Ray.
The sheriff first raised the idea of expanding the SRO program last year and to have the additional officer cover for another SRO who has to be absent due to sickness or some other reason.
“The way we have been handling that is to use the middle school SRO to substitute for an SRO at one of the other schools and to have the high school SRO cover both the high school and middle school but that makes it hard on the high school SRO because DCHS is our busiest place in the school system as far as what SROs do,” said Sheriff Ray at the time.
Although it may have been necessary, staff members at DeKalb Middle School were not particularly happy that their SRO had to be the one to cover for other schools.
During the school board’s workshop Thursday night, prior to the regular monthly meeting, a DMS educator expressed her concerns.
“This school year up to this point we have had our SRO at a different school for twenty-four and a half days. There have been a few times when we had to call the high school SRO and he was in the middle of a situation there so that put us waiting until he could get over here. Fortunately, I am very thankful it was never something life threatening. I know sometimes there has to be a substitute, but it hurts us a lot when we have to lose our SRO because our students know and trust him. Its nice to have that person here,” she said.
“I feel like when a car (SRO vehicle) isn’t present out front, we are sitting ducks,” said another DMS teacher. “They know there is nobody here. I know we had to call him (high school SRO) one time and the radio didn’t work so we had to physically call his cell phone to get him to come because the radio frequency didn’t work at that particular time. Our SRO is needed here for the safety of our staff as much as our students. And with having no walls in the building (between classes) that creates another safety concern,” she said.
Sheriff Ray has not yet announced the name of the new SRO, pending her completing SRO training, although she has been working for some time as a deputy and her base pay is currently $50,601 plus benefits according to her salary tier level with the sheriff’s department.
“We plan to put this female deputy as an SRO at the DeKalb Middle School/DCHS complex. She will be a rover between those schools unless an SRO is absent on a given day at one of the other schools, then she would substitute for that SRO there,” said Sheriff Ray.
Because SRO’s have to work with female students as well as males, Sheriff Ray said having a female SRO in the schools only makes since.
“Female students might feel more comfortable talking to or confiding in a female SRO to assist them in certain situations,” he said.
Now that the decision has been made to create the new SRO position, Sheriff Ray said training has been scheduled for her this summer.
“A regular deputy can’t just go to school and become a school resource officer. To be an SRO, proper training of 40 hours is required with protocols to follow regarding juveniles. That and much more is part of the schooling they must have. We had already prearranged a training at the end of June hoping the school board would take this action and now that they have, we will go ahead and get that underway,” said Sheriff Ray.
Last year the county received state money for each of the five schools to fund the School Resource Officer (SRO) positions. Each school was granted $75,000 for a total allocation from the state of $375,000, which is recurring each year, to be administered by the sheriff’s department in operating the SRO program. The state funds pay the salaries of SRO officers and are used for SRO related needs.
Previously, the sheriff’s department had SROs working at each of the five schools in DeKalb County funded locally, three of them by the county and two by the school district.
The SRO staff currently consists of Roger Whitehead at Smithville Elementary, Joe Pack at Northside Elementary, Joseph Carroll at DeKalb Middle School, Sergeant Chris McMillen at DCHS, and Billy Tiner at DeKalb West School.