LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- The Jefferson County Board of Education will consider a proposal to hire a new security force to patrol local schools by Feb. 1, district officials said during a board work session Tuesday.
Jefferson County Public Schools Superintendent Marty Pollio said if the proposal is passed, he expects some of the new security officers will be hired in time for the 2019-20 school year.
It’s a move that’s been made by other large school districts, such as Austin, Texas, and would allow JCPS to train and monitor a dedicated security staff. Last year, the district contracted with local law enforcement agencies to provide school resource officers at 27 schools.
Under a proposal previously discussed at the board’s Aug. 7 meeting, creating and staffing a new Division of School Security would cost $8.8 million a year plus $2.4 million in one-year startup expenses. That would provide security officers at every middle and high school, with officers also picking up an extra two to three elementary schools for patrols, according to that proposal.
But officials didn’t present a formal plan at Tuesday’s work session.
“Right now we are in the exploratory and making sausage stage of this, but we are quickly moving toward a definitive proposal and definitive timeline for you,” said Chief Operations Officer Michael Raisor, who is part of a safety and security work team at JCPS.
The push for a new security force comes about a year after a police officer, who was not a school resource officer, used a Taser on a Jeffersontown High School student during a fight.
That incident prompted numerous calls at school board meetings to stop the use of police in JCPS schools.
It’s unclear whether the proposed school security officers will be armed, as allowed under state law. Raisor said that’s a topic of discussion among the safety and security review team, and he noted that current school security officers at JCPS are unarmed.
Chris Harmer, chairman of the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, said his preference would be to have unarmed officers at schools. His group was among those calling for JCPS to stop using resource officers, and Harmer said he supports moving to a district-staffed security force.
“That’s a right step,” he told WDRB News after Tuesday’s board meeting. “The question is whether or not they have to be sworn officers, whether or not they have to carry lethal weapons.”
Harmer said he hopes that JCPS will elicit feedback from the community before moving forward on a formal school security proposal.
John Marshall, the district’s chief equity officer who’s also on the safety and security review team, noted that the security force proposal is being evaluated against the district’s racial equity policy.
JCPS is hoping for some help from state lawmakers to attract retired police and military officers to the new security force. The school board unanimously approved a legislative agenda that included a call for legislation that would allow districts to hire retired officers without penalizing their pension benefits.
“If we don’t have success with our legislative agenda, it probably means that we … may have to incentivize through a stipend or something the cost of insurance that a current retired police officer does not have to worry about that they would lose if they came back to work as a school security officer,” Raisor said.
Board member Chris Kolb cautioned against moving forward with a proposal that might sound good but won’t be successful for JCPS.
“We’re talking about adding a substantial number of officers, one for every middle and high perhaps at a greatly increased cost,” Kolb said. “Do we know that that’s actually effective in any way whatsoever? We may, but we may not.”
Reach reporter Kevin Wheatley at 502-585-0838 and kwheatley@wdrb.com. Follow him on Twitter @KevinWheatleyKY.
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