Jeffersontown Police working on plan to replace SROs in JCPS schools

JEFFERSONTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) -- Steve Mattingly is one of several School Resource Officers who will not be returning to the classrooms next week.

For the first time in eight years, Mattingly is not going back to school at Jeffersontown High School, and it hurts.

"About 10% of my life in that school is law-enforcement-related. The rest of it is all about relationships," he said. "Some of the greatest moments of my 30-year career were in that building."

A retired police officer, he said Jefferson County School Board members made a big mistake. On Tuesday night, Jefferson County School Board members split a vote on renewing contracts with Jeffersontown and Shively Police Departments and the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department.

"Clearly, we were hoping that ... that would be approved, the SROs would be approved," JCPS Superintendent Dr. Marty Pollio said.

Wednesday afternoon, Pollio responded to the vote and said the district was already working on a plan B.

"We've been talking for a while about creating our own security team, a security force, so that we can have an SRO in all of our schools," he said. "That's been in the plans, but we know now that we're going to have to work much quicker."

This comes just a few weeks after budget cuts forced Louisville Metro Police to pull 17 officers from schools.

"It's going to be different," Mattingly said. "I've already had phone calls."

Mattingly said he has heard from concerned parents and students by phone and met with some staff Wednesday.

"There was sadness. There were tears. There was a lot of anger, because, just like myself, they were all blind-sided by this," he said.

Mattingly said most of his job involved being a mentor and helping students, but in 2017, he learned of a potential threat and eventually helped deescalate a violent confrontation involving students and police.

"When I got the first opportunity to come back into the building to access the situation and I was faced with a mob of kids, kids that knew me and once they saw me, some of them disengaged," he said. "The majority of them disengaged."

Jeffersontown Police Chief Sam Rogers said his department is working on a backup plan.

"We are disappointed that the school board has taken steps to essentially eliminate school resource officers from the schools in our community," Rogers said. "We, as the Jeffersontown Police Department and the city of Jeffersontown, with the full support of our mayor, Bill Dieruf, we will fill the void that is created by this in some capacity."

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