Clarks Summit Borough Council has agreed to hire school resource officers for Our Lady of Peace School and officials are working on details of the positions.<\/p>\n
Council members approved hiring the officers at their meeting early last month and the borough\u2019s solicitor, Drew Krowiak, is working on a memorandum of understanding between the Police Department and the school, Police Chief Christopher Yarns said.<\/p>\n
Officials have been discussing details of the positions at the school in Clarks Green since the start of the school year, and borough council members talked about it for the first time publicly at their November meeting. The talks have involved the Lackawanna County district attorney\u2019s office, courts and officials in the Diocese of Scranton.<\/p>\n
Yarns said in November officials at the school reached out to him in October about having a school resource officer, with the discussions coming in the wake of a shooting at a Catholic church in Minneapolis in late August.\n<\/p>\n
He said the agreement has to be signed for the officers to start. Yarns anticipates the officers will work at the school full time next school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s slower than I would like, but on the other hand, it\u2019s moving forward, it\u2019s not standing still,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n
Officials have not determined how many SROs will work at the school, but Yarns previously said he sees one or two part-time officers working in the school at different times and hopes to have four officers trained as school resource officers. Two borough officers are currently certified as school resource officers, he added.<\/p>\n
The officers will be paid $26 an hour, which is what part-time borough officers are paid under the current collective bargaining agreement, he said. The school would reimburse the borough for the hours they are in the school.<\/p>\n
Once they are in place, the school will be the first pre-K-8 school in the Diocese of Scranton to have a school resource officer. Two diocesan schools \u2014 Holy Redeemer High School in Wilkes-Barre and St. John Neumann Regional Academy, a pre-K through 12th grade school in Williamsport \u2014 currently employ resource officers, spokesman Eric Deabill said in November, although all schools in the diocese have relationships with law enforcement.\n<\/p>\n
There are two 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
Yarns said his department, which patrols Clarks Green, is ready to go with the school resource officers and he doesn\u2019t foresee any opposition from council members on the agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t seem to be the problem; it\u2019s the logistics of getting the paperwork done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Monday Update<\/p>\n
Then: Clarks Summit Borough Council discussed hiring school resource officers at Our Lady of Peace School in Clarks Green for the first time publicly at their November meeting. School officials approached Police Chief Christopher Yarns about the positions in October in the wake of a school shooting at a Catholic school in Minnesota.<\/p>\n
Now: Council members approved hiring the officers and officials are working on a memorandum of understanding for them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Clarks Summit Borough Council has agreed to hire school resource officers for Our Lady of Peace School and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40245,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[24365,1993,202,227,201,182,139,28,178,180,179],"class_list":["post-78034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-clarks-green","tag-clarks-summit","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-education","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78034","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=78034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78034\/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=78034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}