Teachers sign up for deputy training

Educators from four Boone County school districts are participating in the next round of a reserve deputy training program at the Boone County sheriff’s office.

“That’s not saying they’re going to carry a gun at school,” said Sgt. Dennis Lea, who planned to teach one session Saturday and oversees sheriff’s office programs for Boone County schools. “Theschools aren’t making them come. They’re just coming. They put in an application with the sheriff’s office.”

About 20 people signed up, and two-thirds of them work in rural schools in the county, Lea said. Before they become reserve deputies, the participants must finish the course, undergo background checks and psychological evaluations, and be hired for the reserve deputy program, Lea said.

Then, school districts candecide whether they want staff members who are reserve deputies to carry firearms on campus, he said.

Interest in school security has grown since a shooting last December at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., which left 20 first-graders and six staff members dead.

For years, school districts have paid for law enforcement officers to work on their campuses as school resource officers, but not everydistrict has a school resource officer. For those that do, they typically don’t have one on every campus.

Some school districts have looked at other options.

Clarksville School District received national attention for its plans to arm as many as 20 staff members as licensed security guards. The plans hit a snag after an attorney general’s opinion objected to the practice, and a state licensing board in August suspendedthe licenses of the school security guards. The board later reinstated the existing licenses for two years but will not issue new commissions for security guards in schools.

Boone County Sheriff Mike Moore developed a series of programs for rural Boone County schools to improve school security, assessing the safety of campuses, training teachers and deputizing some school employees.

Faulkner County Sheriff Andy Shock has made a similar offer to deputize school administrators in his county.

School shootings continue to occur, Lea said.

On Monday, a Nevada middle-school student wounded two boys and killed a math teacher just before the school day started.

“We have a whole lot of young people. We gather them all in one spot,” Lea said. “Then, we tell a superintendent that he has to protect them, and he has to make sure they’re safe. Let’s get all the help we can todo that.” THE TRAINING

Reserve deputies are certified volunteer officers who work under the supervision of sheriff’s deputies. Each reserve deputy must have at least a high school diploma and complete a 110-hour training course.

Moore has said a reserve deputy working on a school campus must receive an additional 24 hours of “active shooter” training and 16 hours in weapon retention. Reserve deputies for schools would have to be approved for duty by the superintendent and the sheriff.

School officials from the Alpena, Lead Hill, Omaha and Valley Springs districts said they know some staff members will take the course. Bergman Superintendent Joe Couch said none of his staff members applied for it.

Omaha Superintendent Jerry Parrett was unsure about having staff members who are also reserve deputies, but he sees a need, he said. The Omaha School Board is seeking security beyond video surveillance.

“It’s just not very practicalfor a district our size to have a resource officer. We can’t afford that,” Parrett said. “I think it’s going to be better to have some security than no security. I think it will be a deterrent. Either a resource officer or someone that’s licensed or certified to be a reserve deputy definitely will have an impact.”

Several Lead Hill School District staff members are taking the reserve deputy course, but the board has not made a final decision on whether to have armed staff members on campuses, board president Troy Burleson said.

A school district task force of as many as 10 people will take a broad look at school security, Burleson said.

“I think possibly the task force will help set some of those guidelines of who we would be looking for to fill those roles,” Burleson said. “We’ve been very slow and deliberate and not rushing into this. We’re taking a good method that gets a lot of people on board.” PROS AND CONS

The Alpena School Board has not decided whether to have reserve deputies on campuses, Superintendent Andrea Martin said.

“Everybody’s initially concerned about what that would mean, what that would look like,” Martin said. “I don’t think we can actually get to the point of having employees carrying without first addressing our safety plan. We want to become more confident in those daily routines and processes before we want employees trained and carrying.”

Lea developed a tentative training schedule that goes through April.

The course covers topics such as police ethics, use of force, laws of arrest and accident investigation, Lea said. For educators involved, the course also will cover firearm safety and gun retention, as well as responding to active shooters.

Educators who also are reserve officers would be around large groups of people, and tragic events can happen in a short time, Lea said.

“There’s risk doing this, and there’s risk not doing it,” Lea said. “These school shootings, they’re not going away. I’m going to train for it to happen here. I’m going to train other people for it to happen here.”

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 12 on 10/27/2013

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