After their Christmas and New Year’s break, students in the Rossville Consolidated School District came back to a new presence in their buildings — a uniformed police officer, who is part of a new police department within the district.
Back at the October 2 school board meeting, the board passed a resolution to establish the Rossville Consolidated School District Police Department as pursuant to the authority and standards contained in Indiana Code 20-26-16. The board also authorized the superintendent to purchase the necessary equipment and ensure proper training of the chief and officers as it is related to the job duties of personnel within the Police Department.
Rossville Superintendent Dr. Jim Hanna said this has been discussed for quite some time before deciding to enact it. He added incidents that happened at Noblesville and Richmond last year was a huge factor in deciding to go forward with it.
“The two incidents there I think from my board’s perspective was we really need to do something and we need to do something now,” said Hanna. “Planning started earlier this year. We plan to use the Safe and Secured School Grant if that is available. If not, the board’s made a commitment to go forward with the department because if maintaining a safe school environment for kids.”
The new Chief of Police is no stranger to Clinton County or to Rossville. He is Joe Mink, who just retired last week from the Clinton County Sheriff’s Office last week and has also been a Rossville School Board member for the past couple of years. Hanna introduced Mink to faculty members on Monday and students on Tuesday.
What was Mink’s first thought when he was asked by Hanna about the position.
“Do I retire or do I take on another hat,” said Mink. “I opted to take on another hat. I think it’s going to be a challenge. I would love to have a situation where we have no complaints and no issues. But I know that is not realistic.”
In addition to leaving the sheriff’s office, Mink also had to give up his spot on the school board. Hanna said he has six applicants to replace Mink on the board and hopes that is done in time for the first meeting in February.
Hanna was asked why the decision to go with a police department rather than school resource officers.
“It’s having an individual there that can interact with students, the same person everyday of the school year and having them available if something does happen,” said Hanna. “If he’s right down the hall, the response time is going to a lot of different than if they’re throughout the county somewhere. We’re looking at more of a prevention measure than a reactive measure.”
Hanna said the first and foremost thing for Mink is to develop an interaction with the students and prevent as much as they can from happening.
“We’ve chosen to form our own police department to take it to that next level,” said Hanna. “We want the individual who has the full police powers, but also is a resource officer. We want that same school commitment throughout the school year.”
Mink added, “It’s a good thing, a good program. I was a DARE officer for 17 years. I think it’s great to have police involved in the schools.”