Allen County schools will now have a school resource officer for each of its four schools after the Board of Education decided to hire two additional officers.
Previously Allen County schools had two resource officers, who were splitting their time between the schools. Assistant Superintendent of Operations Brian Carter said the district decided to add the new officers because of the recent school shootings at Marshall County High School in western Kentucky and Parkland, Florida.
“Quickest thing we could do that would add the most security to our schools was putting SRO’s in and we’ll continue to evaluate our security plans and what we do and look at other measures as we go along,” he said.
Carter said having a resource officer in each school in Allen County is a preventative measure. He said the board looked at all of their options and discussed arming teachers before deciding resource officers were the best solution.
“Y’know our teachers are put in the buildings to teach, not to carry guns and take down would-be assailants or anything like that,” Carter said. “So we really didn’t want to put that pressure on them if we can find other ways to secure our kids without doing that.”
The cost of the two officers will be an additional $70,000 a year.
