(The Center Square) – Due to staffing shortages at the King County Sheriff's Office, a pair of Kent School District high schools will not have school resource officers for the 2024-25 school year.
The two schools impacted are Kentwood and Kentlake high schools.
Kentwood is located in the city of Covington, and Kentlake is located in unincorporated Pierce County.
The Center Square reached out to the sheriff's office about the decision.
“It’s never ideal to pull officers out of schools,” KCSO Communications Manger Brandyn Hull said via email. “Unfortunately, this was truly a staffing issue, and we redeployed our unincorporated SROs (School Resource Officers) back to patrol.”
Resource officers in schools do more than break up fights or respond to potential security incidents, she noted.
“They get to know and build relationships with students,” Hull said.
Having SROs in school buildings also helps to address issues quicker than a patrol response, including in cases of child abuse, runaway reports and assistance for staff who may have personal issues or questions, according to the sheriff's department, which hopes to put officers back into Kentwood and Kentlake high schools in the near future.
“As we work to get our staffing up to an optimal level, we’re working closely with the districts to try and get SROs back into the schools in the 2025-2026 school year,” Hull said.
Other Kent middle and high schools will have armed officers provided through a contract with the Kent Police Department.
Kent elementary schools have unarmed security personnel.
Kent Police Officer Kevin Strong currently works at Kentridge High School and Meridian Middle School.
At a July 10 school board meeting , just ahead of the board approving the 2024-25 school year contract, Strong told board members he’s been an SRO for six years.
“I like them to see me as just a school resource officer,” said Strong. “I'm not the cop then, so when something elevates to the point where it's a potential criminal matter, the first thing I try to do is [figure out] how can we keep these kids out of the Criminal Justice System.”
Strong said getting to know students and their families is critical.
“Sometimes things are a lot more effective when the parents are involved, and the police stay out of it and let the school do their business of educating the kids,” Strong said. “When we get something that's very serious, we put our criminal hat on, but 95% of the time things could for the most part stay at the school level.”
The City of Kent and the school district split the costs for resource officers.
For the two school resource officers, the total cost is $363,200, according to district documents.
“There is a lot of excitement around joining the sheriff’s office and we continue to see an enthusiastic response to our openings," Hull said of recruiting efforts by the sheriff's office.
In 2023, the sheriff's office had about 120 vacancies and are now down to 64.
“Our applicants are up about 50%," Hull said. "we see more than 20 applicants a week, compared to about 10 a week last year."
Most Popular
Comments / 0