Despite a shortage of officers in the state, State Superintendent Tom Horne gave grants to schools so they could get school resource officers, and a majority of those were filled, but not all of them. The Arizona Department of Education (AZED) announced that they are coming out with a new program that will place more police officers in schools. Agencies, such as the Phoenix Police Department, said they did not have enough officers to give.
The Phoenix Union High School District requested six school resource officers but only received two because the Phoenix City Council said they could not fill those needs. Therefore, Horne and some local district leaders came up with the solution for adding more officers in schools. AZED is contracting with Off Duty Management, “a company that works on scheduling off-duty officers to serve in other jobs and areas.” Meaning some schools in one city will have officers working from another city’s jurisdiction, and it won’t always be the same officer every day. If a school already has an officer, then they will continue working there.
Mike Kurtenbach, the director of school safety for AZED said that “school safety officers (SSOs) are still sworn officers, they just don’t have as much training in a school setting compared to a school resource officer.” Kurtenbach also mentioned that SSOs will be getting at least eight hours of training to work with the school environment through AZED. There were many schools that didn’t get a school resource officer (SRO) at the start of this new policy, and the Western School of Science and Technology was one of them. With the new program, Superintendent Jessica Makowske claimed she will be asking for an off-duty officer. “The off-duty officer is going to meet some of the needs we have here. So, it is an option that we can use,” she said.
Horne revealed that through the contract with Off Duty Management, there will be over 138 officers that they’ll be able to place on school campuses in 11 Arizona counties. The school boards and police departments will have to sign off on this contract as well. The Phoenix Police Department hesitated, but after ABC15 reached out, the Phoenix Police Department mentioned that they didn’t say anything about not participating and have had ongoing talks with Off Duty Management. “We have reallocated personnel and have staffed 95% of the schools in our city which have requested a police officer on campus. Of the 122 schools that have requested an officer, we cover 116. We continue to look for creative ways to cover the additional six schools.”
Having more officers in schools contributes to a safer academic environment, especially as a school’s size increases. A downfall on this is that officers will technically never be off duty, but the schools and students should be grateful that officers are willing to protect our Arizona schools.
