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Central Bucks East may add School Resource Officer

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With Central Bucks School District already deploying a school resource officer at Central Bucks South High School as a security enhancement, Buckingham is now considering an SRO for its own high school — Central Bucks East.

School District Director of Operations Kevin Spencer presented a half-hour PowerPoint on the subject, and then entertained questions during a May 24 board of supervisors work session.

The presentation especially focused on the district’s existing deployment of an SRO at its CB South in Warrington.

Buckingham Supervisors Chair Paul Calderaio emphasized the school is already receiving strong support from the township’s police department. A similar addition is understood to also be under consideration for Central Bucks West.

Spencer outlined the SRO option, which serves as an employee of local law enforcement, as compared to a school security officer or school police officer, which is employed by a school district. He noted full definitions of those alternatives were covered in state Act 67.

Spencer especially noted that an SRO was more than just a police officer, offering a direct link to a police department for violence prevention, but also functioning as a speaker, teacher, counselor and mentor, thereby promoting a trusting relationship with students that allowed for their confident sharing of any security intel, among other benefits.

While noting national statistics on SROs allowing for the diversion of attacks, he also commented that “we are not looking to build prisons for our kids,” and that adding an SRO represented “a proactive model, with reactive availability.”

Discussion included making a distinction between routine student issues and those that “rose to the level of law enforcement.”

At the outset of the regular meeting business meeting that followed, supervisors presented Marissa Ballew with a special proclamation honoring her achievement of the Girl Scout Gold Award.


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