September 10, 2018
By Paragon News Director Paul Joseph –
Tees are being dotted and eyes crossed on a memo of understanding that will place a new SRO officer inside three Beckham County School systems.
Beckham County Sheriff Derek Manning got the thumbs-up approval at a recent meeting of the Beckham County Commissioners to proceed with the final draft of the MOU to place an additional deputy on staff. The new deputy who will be a full time school resource officer, or SRO, will split their time between Merritt, Sayre and Sweetwater.
Manning says he was approached by each of the three school districts for an officer and he’s been working out the idea of how it would work and how the new officer’s salary and benefits would be handled.
He says he wanted to get an officer in place before now, but the paper work and the opinion from the district attorney’s office took a little longer than expected.
Manning says he’s not necessarily looking for a person already on staff or hiring from the outside. What he’s specifically looking for is a person that meets the criteria of working in a school environment and working with kids. It takes a special person that is able to work as a tough law enforcer and, yet, be able to relate to children almost simultaneously.
Elk City Public Schools already has an SRO officer while Erick does not. Manning says if the Erick school system expresses an in terest, he’s open to discuss the idea.
– 30 –