A Clarks Summit police officer will be present in the halls and classrooms of Our Lady of Peace School when students and teachers start the new school year.<\/p>\n
The borough council approved a memorandum of understanding this month between the borough, Clarks Summit Police Department, the school in Clarks Green and the Diocese of Scranton to provide a school resource officer from the Police Department at the school. Council members also approved an agreement that Solicitor Andrew Krowiak said allows the police chief to schedule the officers to work at the school.<\/p>\n
The officer will be in place when school starts in August.<\/p>\n
The Police Department, which patrols Clarks Green, has one part-time officer trained as a school resource officer, but Police Chief Christopher Yarns hopes another SRO will be hired. All school resource officers have to be trained, he said, and the officer will perform other police duties when school is not in session.<\/p>\n
The officer will be paid $26 an hour, Yarns said, and the school will reimburse the borough for the hours the officer works.<\/p>\n
The memorandum states both the officer and school will be responsible for preventing delinquent acts through preventive measures like referrals to support services, diversionary programs, education and deterrence, and establishing and maintaining cooperative relationships.<\/p>\n
The officer will investigate all incidents reported on school property or at any school-sponsored activity, and where appropriate, apprehend individuals responsible for an incident, according to the memorandum of understanding. School officials will provide law enforcement all relevant information related to an incident, assist in a reported incident, provide the officer a copy of its behavior support services procedures and invite law enforcement representatives to behavior support trainings.<\/p>\n
School officials are required to report to law enforcement incidents involving weapons, assault, kidnapping, rape, arson, third-degree vandalism, burglary, trespassing and possession, use or sale of drugs or drug paraphernalia.<\/p>\n
The memorandum gives school officials discretion to report other acts, like simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, harassment, misdemeanor or second-degree vandalism, disorderly conduct, selling or using tobacco, and purchasing or consuming liquor by a person 21 years and under. Officials have to consider the seriousness of the situation, the school\u2019s ability to defuse or resolve the situation, the child\u2019s intent, the child\u2019s age, whether the student has a disability and, if so, the type of disability and its impact on the student\u2019s behavior, and other relevant factors when doing so.<\/p>\n
The officer is required to notify the school and parents or guardians of students involved in an incident.<\/p>\n
In addition, school officials are required to provide floor plans, a campus map, current student and teacher rosters, and shutoff locations and procedures for fire alarms, sprinkler systems, gas and utility lines to the SRO.<\/p>\n
Yarns said the officer will investigate incidents reported through alert systems like the Safe2Say Something reporting system.<\/p>\n
School officials began discussing the idea of having a school resource officer in the fall. Yarns said the discussions were prompted by a shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis in late August.<\/p>\n
The school, which enrolled 341 students last school year, is the first for students in grades prekindergarten through eight in the diocese to have a school resource officer. Two other diocesan schools \u2014 Holy Redeemer High School in Wilkes-Barre and St. John Neumann Regional Academy, a pre-K to 12th grade school in Williamsport \u2014 employ school resource officers. There are two other school resource officers in the Abingtons, both of whom are South Abington Twp. officers; they are stationed at Abington Heights High School and Abington Heights Middle School.\n<\/p>\n
Our Lady of Peace School was one of five in the diocese awarded a school safety grant this month to establish a school resource officer, spokesman Eric Deabill said in an email last week. The other schools to receive a grant were All Saints Academy in Scranton, La Salle Academy in Jessup, St. Mary of Mount Carmel School in Dunmore and Notre Dame Junior\/Senior High School in East Stroudsburg.\n<\/p>\n
Deabill said administrators in other schools are beginning the process of placing a school resource officer in their buildings, but exact timelines for when that will happen are still being worked out.<\/p>\n
Yarns said a school resource officer can build relationships with students and parents that extend outside school hours.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have someone that\u2019s a good SRO who they like, they build trust,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Having a law enforcement presence also helps with major incidents, Yarns said. The officer can also alert the school when there is a threat that requires a lockdown.<\/p>\n
Principal Ann D\u2019Arienzo said the school has always had a good relationship with the Clarks Summit Police Department and is looking forward to the SRO providing an added layer of security for students and staff. Having the officer in the school also allows students to see police officers as people who help.<\/p>\n
\u201cA police presence on a regular basis will be positive for all of our students to see that police officers are helpful, they are the helpers, they are the people that we can turn to in any type of distress,\u201d she said. \u201cGetting to know the SRO will just make that relationship much more beneficial.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Clarks Summit police officer will be present in the halls and classrooms of Our Lady of Peace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24365,1993,227,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,181],"class_list":["post-224968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-clarks-green","tag-clarks-summit","tag-education","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-stt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}