Oconee County Schools administrators have drafted and sent to Sheriff James Hale for review a Memorandum of Understanding designed to put school resource officers in each of the system’s 12 schools by the start of the next school year.
The Memorandum also formalizes the placement of the two school resource officers now in the county’s two high schools for the remainder of this school year.
The Memorandum calls for Hale to hire 12 specially trained and vetted officers in the next Fiscal Year at a cost of between $375,233 and $557,579 for 180 working days per officer during the school year.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners, which funds the bulk of the operation of the Sheriff’s Office, would be expected to cover the remaining costs for 80 work days per officer during the year.
Sheriff Hale would be responsible for reassigning the school resource officers, whose hiring would be partially under the control of Oconee County Schools, for other duties when they are not working at the schools.
Costs for the two school resource officers now assigned to the two high schools for this school year is estimated to be between $62,538 and $92,929.
The draft Memorandum of Understanding was released at the Board of Education meeting last week.
Two women who spoke at the public communication section of the meeting proposed that the school resource officers be employees of the school system, rather than the Sheriff’s Office.
The meeting ended, following an executive session, with the Board voting to reject an appeal of a decision it made last month to sustain an unspecified disciplinary action against a student at one of the system’s schools.
Meeting Agenda
The Board of Education holds a regular meeting, but no work session, in November, December and January, and the meeting on Nov. 11 was a full one.
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| Recognition Of Burgess, Third From Left, 11/11/2024 |
The meeting included more than 30 minutes of recognitions, about half of which were devoted to a tribute to Board Member Tim Burgess, who is stepping down from the Board next month after 11 years on the Board.
Superintendent Jason Branch noted that Board Chair Kim Argo also is leaving the Board, and she will be honored next month.
“I'd like to just spend a little bit of time talking about the accomplishments that this school system achieved and that this governance team achieved with the direction, support, guidance, and commitment of Tim Burgess,” Branch said.
He mentioned an increase in enrollments, the opening of a new elementary and a new middle school, increased technology in the classroom, expansion of the system’s bus fleet, and improved student performance on a number of metrics.
The recognition section of the meeting was followed by the usual staff reports, including on student learning, operations, and finances.
That public part of the meeting lasted just less than 90 minutes.
The Board then adjourned to executive session to approve the personnel recommendations of Superintendent Branch and “to review an appeal from a Student Disciplinary Tribunal, Hearing Officer, or Panel.”
After nearly 50 minutes in closed executive session, the Board reconvened in open session and voted to affirm the finding that the student violated the code of conduct.
The announcement of that decision produced an angry outburst from the attorney representing the student and family and the attorney’s removal from the room by school officials and a deputy sheriff.
School Resource Officers
The report by Kevin Yancey, Director of Student Services, who was joined by Justin Cofer, Chief Human Resources Officer, on progress on implementation of a school resource officer program produced the most reaction from the Board.
It also was the subject of the comments of the only two citizens who addressed the Board at the Nov. 11 meeting.
Yancey said that discussions are ongoing with the Sheriff’s Office about school resource officers and that a draft of the Memorandum of Understanding is now in the hands of Sheriff Hale and his staff.
He also said that the two school resource officers, one at North Oconee High School and the other at Oconee County High School, are there without a formal agreement between the school system and the Sheriff’s Office.
Yancey said the Board will need to approve a Memorandum of Understanding to cover those two officers as well as those added to the program in the future.
The Memorandum, not released to the public until after the meeting, is an eight-page document that states that the “SRO shall provide classroom instruction and act as a resource for information for School System students, faculty, and staff concerning law enforcement topics.”
The school resource officer also “shall assist in traffic control during the arrival and departure of students” and “may take emergency law enforcement action when required by law; provided, however, that the Principal of the school shall be notified of such action as soon as practicable.”
The Sheriff will appoint the school resource officer but the “appropriate School System personnel may participate in any interviews of prospective SRO candidates,” according to the draft memo.
The memorandum lists 11 qualifications of candidates, including two years of experience as a certified law enforcement officer, attendance at school resource office training within a year of assignment in the school, and the “ability to work well with young people and educators.”
Responsibility and Compensation
The draft Memorandum of Understanding states that the resource officers “shall be and remain employees of the OCSO (Oconee County Sheriff Office) and shall not be OCS (Oconee County Schools) employees.”
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| Martin Following Meeting 11/11/2024 |
It also states that “The OCSO may temporarily reassign Program Officers when school is not in session and during periods of law enforcement emergency.”
Cofer told the Board that the memorandum assumes that a school resource officer works 260 days per year and that 180 of those days will be as an officer in the schools.
Based on that calculation, and the current starting salary of the Sheriff’s Office of $45,167 and the top salary of $67,116, he said, the cost to Oconee County Schools for the two officers working this school year is between $62,538 and $92,929 for 180 days of service.
For next year, the cost will be between $375,233 and $557,579 for 180 hours of service from 12 school resource officers.
The Oconee County Board of Commissioners would be expected to contribute between $166,776 and $247,824 for the 80 days the 12 resource officers were not in the schools, based on those calculations, though Cofer did not specify those amounts.
Board Member Burgess said the Oconee County plan follows those in surrounding counties where there is a "partnership" between the school systems and the Sheriff’s Offices.
“So, by inference, I'm assuming that other days, when those deputies are not in the school systems, they're doing other duties that are assigned to them by the sheriff in that particular county,” he said. “That's kind of the basic premise that we're going down following the other models around us.”
Sheriff Hale’s budget is funded by the Board of Commissioners. Oconee County Commission Chair John Daniell and County Administrator Justin Kirouac said on Tuesday (Nov. 19) afternoon they had not yet seen the draft Memorandum of Understanding released by Oconee County Schools staff on Nov. 11.
Timeline
The Memorandum of Understanding differentiates between this school year, with two resource officers, and next year, with 12, and Cofer’s presentation followed that distinction.
Board Member Amy Parrish asked Cofer, however, if he could provide a timeline for implementation of the school resource officer program.
“I can take that one, Ms. Parrish,” Superintendent Branch said. “The conversations we've had with the Sheriff and his team is that the training just to be a law enforcement officer has doubled recently to 800 hours. There's additional training for school resource officers.”
“The individuals who are school resource officers in our system right now are getting ready to go attend some of those trainings,” he said.
“Sheriff Hale has said that he currently has vacancies for patrol deputies,” Branch said, “and so those will need to be filled as well as these additional positions.”
“As soon as there are available SROs to be placed in our schools--whenever that is--then we would receive those SROs and hopefully have an MOU (memorandum of understanding) in place at that time that would outline our responsibilities, costs and could bring those information back to the Board.”
“The Sheriff has shared with us and others that that will take time,” Branch said.
“I think we're moving in a great direction in formalizing that particular part of the of the MOU,” Branch said.
Citizen Comments
Angela Martin, the first of the two citizens who addressed the Board on Nov. 11, said that a number of school systems in the state are employing school resource officers who are more than half compensated by the school system.
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| Screen Shot Smith 11/11/2024 |
She said the systems make the school resource officer a school employee, because “they report difficulty hiring and maintaining school resource officers without being 51 percent or more school employees.”
“So I would ask Dr. Branch and the Board, would you consider hiring school resource officers as employees of the school system at 51 percent or more to ensure timely placement of school resource officers in our schools?”
Cofer had told the Board that both Elbert County and Clarke County among surrounding counties have created a school police department to provide school resource officers in their schools.
Devin Smith said “we've made a lot of calls and have a lot of information that supports the idea that if these are employees of Oconee County Schools it could both take the pressure off of the Sheriff, who has stated that he's got a lot of open positions to fill in his own divisions much less these additional ones, and could help with attracting people from anywhere who might already be trained.”
“As I heard Mr. Cofer state,” she said, “I think that the goal under the current draft MOU, which, by the way, I would ask that you would share it with us as the public so we could all review that too--that under the current draft the idea is to get an SRO in every school by next school year.”
“We certainly want an accelerated timeline,” she said. “Eight more months, nine more months, 10 more months of 10 of our schools not having that support. It's not something that we as parents can just acquiesce to.”
“So all we're asking is please just keep it moving and please tell us these concrete times that it's going to move again. So thankful to have heard what we heard tonight, but we'd love to hear more because we still all have the exact same goal: 12 SROs--on every campus. That's all we want.”
As is usual, no Board member responded to either of the two speakers.
Other Reports, Action
Superintendent Branch, in his report to the Board, said the Constitutional Amendment approved by voters on Nov. 5 “does have some impact on the school system and we'll be talking about that at a later date as we look at revenues and the impact of that bill.”
Branch had not responded to a request for comment on the amendment before the election.
Susan Stancil, Chief Academic Officer, in her Teaching and Learning Report, told the Board that ACT test scores showed an increase this year and are the “highest in history of OCS.”
She also reported that the 2024 graduation rate of 99.1 percent for Oconee County Schools “is well above the state rate of 85.4 percent and again this is also the highest graduation rate in the history of Oconee County Schools.”
Cofer, in his Human Resources Report, said that he has created two calendars for the 2026-2027 school year, one he called a “traditional model starting school on the first Wednesday in August, 90 instructional days each semester, and concluding school with students before Memorial Day.”
He called the second a “fall break model that would start school on a Monday, include a week-long break in October, and still conclude school before Memorial Day.”
Cofer said the system is seeking public comment on these options.
Chief Financial Officer Peter Adams released his usual six reports, showing that the General Fund Cash Balance stands at $43.1 million, up from $40.9 million last month, Education Local Option Sales Tax collections are up 6.56 percent from the same month a year ago, and investment income already is at $608,417, which is $558,417 more than budgeted.
Executive Session
Following an executive session at its Oct. 21 meeting, Superintendent Branch reported in public that “The Oconee Board of Education reviewed all evidence and testimony presented at a Student Disciplinary Hearing held on Sept. 25, 2024.”
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| Olson (Back To Camera) 11/11/2024 |
The Board then approved “a motion that the Board affirm the finding that the student violated the Code of Conduct as described in the disciplinary hearing record and the punishment imposed by the hearing officer.”
After the executive session on Nov. 11, Branch said “up next we do have the student disciplinary hearing review that the Board just conducted.”
The Board voted that “the Oconee County Board of Education upholds the finding that the student violated the Code of Conduct as described in the disciplinary hearing record and the punishment opposed by the hearing officer.”
After the unanimous vote, Chair Argo said the Board was adjourned, and the Board members and Branch stood up to leave.
Attorney William Olson moved forward from the rear of the room and said “You failed an 11-year-old child. Every one of you. You failed an 11-year-old child.”
“Committed to student success?” Olson said, pointing to the logo on the wall behind the Board. “You failed, failed, an 11-year-old child.”
Only Burgess remained at the desk and looked at Olson as he spoke. The others moved out of the room.
Another voice can be heard off camera in the video below, and the Sheriff Deputy, followed by Yancey, move Olson out of the room.
Oconee County Schools has not released any other information about the hearings.
Video
Harold Thompson followed school policy and recorded the video below from the rear of the room.
I had requested that Thompson record the video for me because I was out of town and because Oconee County Schools does not include the parts of the meeting following executive sessions in the video it uploads.
Recognitions start at 0:51 in the video.
The recognition of Burgess starts at 15:56.
Branch began his report at 42:35.
Stancil began her report at 46:56 in the video.
Yancey began speaking at 52:30 and turned to the school resource officer update at 56:21.
Cofer began his report on school calendars at 1:14:20.
The business services report begins at 1:16:52 in the video.
The Board returned from executive session at 1:33:41 in the video.
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