With the goal of enhancing elementary students’ safety, two on-duty, fully-uniformed Frankfort police officers will be assigned to the City’s three elementary schools when the school year begins Wednesday, August 8 with Sergeant Jeremy Rushton assigned to Blue Ridge and Green Meadows Elementaries and Sergeant Mark Schilling assigned to Suncrest Elementary.In addition, Police Officer Joshua Danner will visit and present programs at every school in the district throughout the school year. Danner is a certified Alert Lockdown Inform Counter and Evacuate (ALICE) active shooter and threat instructor.
Rushton, Schilling and Danner will be a certified School Resource Officers (SRO) by the National Association of School Resource Officers by August 8.
According to Mayor Chris McBarnes, this initiative is a partnership between his administration and Community Schools of Frankfort leaders.
“Even before the tragedy in Noblesville recently, Police Chief Troy Bacon and I had been in discussions with Superintendent Don DeWeese, working out the logistics and costs of training and assigning school resource officers (SRO)s to our elementaries once school begins in August.
“There is no higher priority than the safety and well-being of our children. This safety initiative is another positive collaboration between the City and our dedicated school leaders. Special thanks go to our City Council for their important role in providing the funding for our SROs’ training,” McBarnes said.
According to Chief Bacon, off-duty officers will continue to be on-site at Frankfort High School and Frankfort Middle School as they have been in the past with the school corporation paying their off-duty salaries.
“With this arrangement, each of our schools has a well-trained, highly-skilled, dedicated officer on-site each day of the school year. These officers are there to not only provided security and protection, but to interact with our youth in a positive fashion, thereby further improving our community policing efforts.
“We want students to engage with the officers at their schools and know that each officer is there to help them if needed and serve as a valuable connection between the students and staff and our department,” Bacon said.
In the summer, the school resource officers will be reassigned to the patrol division.