CROSSVILLE, Tenn. — The Cumberland County Board of Education unanimously voted Dec. 26 to start a school resource officer (SRO) program in its schools.
The program will involve four SROs from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department splitting their time monitoring the eight elementary schools within the county. During the meeting, two school board members expressed a desire to have full-time SROs in every school if funding became available, Crossville Chronicle reports.
Initially, the county requested the school board to start a school safety officer (SSO) program, where SSOs are hired and managed by the school system and receive a lower salary than officers hired by the sheriff’s department. However, the school board argued that SSOs lack the experience in supervising law enforcement and could possibly become a liability.
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