Grapevine Colleyville ISD heads back to class on Wednesday, and the school district has something new to celebrate this year.
Colleyville Police will be hiring six all-new school resource officers to add to the district in the coming months.
The effort to get an SRO assigned to every school has been a long time coming for this district, even before Uvalde, according to police.
In fact, the department had even applied for a grant to make that happen within the last few years, but it was denied.
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Now, CPD will finally have the funding to make it possible. This month, Colleyville City Council approved the Colleyville Crime Control and Prevention District budget for the upcoming fiscal year, with more than $500,000 set aside to cover the officers' salaries.
All six SROs will go to GCISD schools within Colleyville city limits, including one at Liberty Elementary, which is a part of Keller ISD.
Colleyville, Bransford, O.C. Taylor, Glenhope within GCISD will each have a full-time SRO assigned to the campus. Bridges Accelerated Learning Center and Vista Alternative Learning Center in GCISD will share an assigned SRO.
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Colleyville police say the massacre in Uvalde and other shootings across the country has really driven home the reason why it's necessary to have an SRO in every school.
“That's one thing that we're really trying to drive home with our whole department – is staying visible and being that presence in every single school that we have so that everybody feels safe,” said Sgt. Dara Nelson with CPD. “So that we're learning the layouts of the schools, really becoming experts on our schools, and letting the staff, students and parents know that we're here for them. We're going to be there to keep them safe as often as we can."
Colleyville police currently have three full time SROs assigned to Colleyville-Heritage High School, Colleyville Middle School and Heritage Middle School. Grapevine police have SROs assigned to Grapevine High School, Grapevine Middle School, and Cross Timbers Middle School.
However, both departments are having to split time between checking on elementary schools as there is currently no full time officer assigned. That will soon change with this extra funding.
"We finally have the support where we can get the budget funding to be able to hire them on without any question,” said Nelson. “We have gotten approval and support from everybody in this city to be able to move forward with that. So we're really excited to be able to give those students and staff the safety and security that they deserve, not just on occasion or when the time allows.”
SROs will be subject to the same type of training as other officers within the department, including the police academy and field/service training.
Nelson said the SROs will serve as a liaison between the school campus and the district, but will also play a role in teaching students and staff about crime prevention, security and safety.
It will take some time to officially hire and train the SROs and get them in the schools, but the process has now begun.
Depending on how quickly they're hired, officers could start as soon as next school semester. However, the CPD chief estimated it could take up to 12 to 18 months to have all six officers hired, trained, and working in the schools.
