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Officials Discuss School Safety at Round Table Meeting
Posted on January 16, 2013
A round table meeting was held yesterday (Tuesday) in the courthouse annex to discuss school safety. Various county officials met and talked about some of the different ways the county schools could be made safer.
Sheriff Kyle Helton reiterated his preference for an SRO to be placed in every school and the room seemed to have a unanimous preference for this. The cost for these six new officers has been estimated to be between $260-270,000. As suggestions for this and for much needed school improvements were brought up, this led to the questions of how the county would pay for it and would that be enough. No definite answers were given, although a $25 wheel tax, which would bring in over $800,000 annually, was suggested as one possible solution.
State Representative Barry Doss was in attendance and he said a bill had already been filed by a state senator to fund an SRO in every school. For it to pass, however, such a bill would first have to go through several committees and Police Chief John Dickey questioned how long the state would fund this program.
Both Sheriff Helton and Chief Dickey discussed how they have had officers make daily unscheduled walkthroughs of the schools and that this has been well received by school administrators as well as students.
Other suggestions broached at the meeting include the possibility of a school safety expert being brought in to evaluate the schools as well as the idea of public fundraisers to help offset the initial cost of school improvements.
Although nothing definite was decided, all the officials agreed that this is a conversation they will continue to have until Giles County schools are made safer
T.E.
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