Deal Means Police Stay in Schools

The and township have reached an agreement that will maintain the longtime practice of having two police officers in local schools.

Superintendent Bill Gretzula announced Wednesday that the township has withdrawn its request to have the district begin paying the cost of one of two school resource officers, which he previously said was $190,000.

In exchange, he said, the district will begin paying the entire cost of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education and Gang Resistance Education and Training programs, which is $55,000.

Gretzula said he recently worked out the agreement with Fred Harran, the township's public safety director.

“I appreciate the director's diplomacy in this matter,” he said.

The superintendent told the school board in January that the township had asked the district to pick up half the cost of the D.A.R.E. program along with half the cost of two school resource officers, one of whom works at the High School and the other at the middle schools.

He previously said the D.A.R.E. program's annual cost is $44,000.

Both the D.A.R.E. and G.R.E.A.T. programs are taught by police officers.

The D.A.R.E. and SRO programs were begun with funding from state grants. The first school resource officer was assigned in 1999, Harran previously said, with a two-year grant. In 2000, he said, another state grant made it possible to add a second SRO for the middle schools.