Levangie
By Ron Nunnari
CLAYTON — At its July 20 regular meeting Clayton city council passed a resolution to enter into an agreement with the Northmont School District for the provision of School Resource Officers for the 2023-2024 school year.
The contract is not to exceed $130,000 to provide one resource officer for both the middle and high school. Officer Joseph Levangie will be assigned to the high school with Officer Tom Hamlin assigned to the middle school.
This year marks the 12th year Clayton has provided SROs to Northmont. Last year’s contract came in at $110,000. The SRO Program is a joint cooperative effort between the city and school district.
The goal is to build a positive relationship between police officers, school staff, and the students, to promote a safe and positive learning environment and decrease the number of youth formally referred to the juvenile justice system.
The SRO Program goals include:
1. Ensuring a safe learning environment for all children and adults who enter the building.
2. Preventing and reducing potential harm related to incidents of school violence and / or illegal drug and controlled substance abuse.
3. To foster a positive school climate based on respect for all children and adults in the school.
4. To create partnerships with behavioral health and other care providers in the community for student and family referral.
This SRO program is unique to the community, based on input from the school administration, teachers, faculty, students, families and community members. The program is designed to fulfill three overall roles:
1. Law enforcement
2. Fostering positive school climate / crime prevention
3. Education
The SROs are responsible for the majority of law enforcement activities occurring at the school during school hours. Building administration is responsible for school-based discipline. A determination of whether an activity raises to the level of law enforcement activity shall be made in consultation with a school administrator.
Parents, students, teachers and other school personnel should bring complaints about student misbehavior to the attention of the school principal and / or designee, rather than the SRO.
While law enforcement is the role of SROs, alternatives to arrest should be used when possible, and arrest of students should be a measure of last resort. The SROs discretion to act remains the same as that of any other police officer.
Reach Ron Nunnari at [email protected].
