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Alamance-Burlington Schools to hire elementary school resource officers

Alamance County Board of Commissioners approved funding to pay the salaries for 14 new officers.

ALAMANCE COUNTY, N.C. — More Triad school districts are looking at ways to improve safety ahead of the new school year.

Alamance County voted Monday to give enough money to Alamance-Burlington Schools for the district to hire 14 more school resource officers. The money comes with some conditions.

It is meant only for salaries. Money for cars, uniforms and weapons will have to come from city governments.

The school district must also fill the first 10 SRO positions before they can use the money to hire the final four.

Increasing SROs was a major topic of conversation at a joint Board of Education and County Commission meeting last week.

ABSS has one full-time SROs for all of the district's middle and high schools. Fourteen elementary schools have part-time SROs. The district was initially supposed to receive funding for four new full-time officers for elementary schools.

Board of Education chair Sandy Ellington-Graves said the hope is to recruit brand new officers as well as retired ones. She said the biggest obstacle is training, which could take a year or more.

"Bringing on a new officer and getting them through Basic Law Enforcement Training, getting them on the force and getting them through a year of service, that could take a long time," Ellington-Graves said.

The board chair told WFMY News 2's Grace Holland Tuesday, that she's not sure if it will be possible to fill the first 10 positions in the next month. The hope is to find a few before school starts.

"Those schools have part-time coverage now so I'm hoping at best, maybe we can have part-time (at some schools) and maybe have half of those (schools) covered with a full-time position," Ellington-Graves said. "Maybe retired officers can share schools to make sure we've got full coverage throughout the school day."

Alamance is not the only county talking about adding SROs.

Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page suggested earlier this month that county COVID relief funds could be used to hire more.

County Manager Lance Metzler told WFMY News 2's Grace Holland Tuesday that those funds were allocated to other projects earlier this year. The county budget was also set earlier this month.

Metzler said a School Facilities Committee plans to meet with Sheriff Page soon to talk about other options.

Guilford County Schools Board of Education Chair Deena Hayes-Greene said school leaders met recently with county law enforcement leaders to discuss ways to improve school safety.

Hayes-Greene said those conversations didn't used to happen very often but the plan is to continue talking ahead of next school year.

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