Edinburgh schools, the only district without a school police officer, wants to hire a resource officer for the coming school year.
Now, how to pay for the officer is the issue. Money can come from the Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s Secured School Safety Grant program, but that requires a 50 percent match from the district.
The Edinburgh Town Council is interested in helping cover the cost, members said during a joint meeting between the town council and school board recently. Such an arrangement is common. Franklin city government pays for some of the school resources officers who work in Franklin schools.
“I am in total favor of partnering with the school board for a resource officer with the town supplying whatever we need to for it,” Edinburgh town council member Jerry Lollar said. “We’re trying to figure out the partnership we could have. I’m financially in favor of the town divvying out and making this happen and making it happen this year. I want it to happen before the next school term.”
Next, Edinburgh schools superintendent Doug Arnold will meet with the Edinburgh Police Department to discuss how much money they should request from the state. He also plans to meet with Town Manager J.T. Doane to work out the logistics of funding the Edinburgh schools match of the grant, Arnold said.
The officer will spend most of his or her time at Edinburgh’s middle and high school, which are located in the same building, but will also spend some time at East Side Elementary. The officer would have to be available each school day, although Arnold doesn’t know if this will be a full-time or part-time position, and a lot depends on funding, he said.
“Money is very tight, but the town seems interested and we have a lot of interest if we can afford it,” Arnold said.
Arnold previously worked for Maconaquah schools, which introduced its first school resource officer while he was there, a Miami County police officer who worked at the schools when he was off duty. Beyond protecting students, school resource officers, commonly known as SROs, help build relationships, he said.
“Something I didn’t anticipate, you bring in law enforcement to school as a good preventative thing, but what developed was a rapport between the SRO and the kids,” Arnold said. “It was so positive and supportive.”
The last safety grant Edinburgh schools received from the department of homeland security was a $30,600 grant in 2014, which required a 100 percent match. The schools used the grant for bulletproof glass and a buzzer system for entrances at the middle and high school, Arnold said.
Edinburgh schools aren’t the only district in Johnson County ramping up security. Clark-Pleasant schools started its own police department earlier this year using referendum money. Franklin schools also plan to use referendum dollars to fund a fourth school resource officer at their district. Center Grove Schools has its own police department.
Currently, Edinburgh police has officers at the school when students arrive and leave school, and occasionally an officer will go through one of the schools during the school day, Police Chief David Mann said.
The officers are also available during any emergencies and can be there within minutes. Typically, the officers are there within five minutes and get two calls a month on average. Having an officer assigned to the schools, however, has multiple benefits, Mann said.
“It helps us by maintaining a dialogue with kids and finding out what’s going on to provide a sense of a safer school for students while they’re in it," Mann said. "It would create a more conducive environment for them to excel in their studies. The other benefit would be we can have someone on the scene in the event of an emergency there already to lead the officers as they arrive.”
