My News 13 – by Amanda McKenzie
ORLANDO — Orange County Public Schools approved a plan that would give the school district a police force.
According to both Orange County Public Schools and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office there has been no increase in violent crimes on school campuses.
The idea to create a police force came from a consultant’s recommendation after the Sandy Hook tragedy. Officials said the schools just want more control when it comes to monitoring threats and handling investigations, rather than just having students arrested.
With more than 192,000 students filling 189 schools, Orange County has a lot of ground to cover as one of the largest school districts in Florida.
So far this school year, there have been five firearms and 49 other weapons confiscated on school campuses.
“There are threats all the time and we need a greater level of intelligence gathering,” school board Chairman Bill Sublette said. “We need a greater ability to access local, state and federal databases, none of which we can do without our own police force.”
Sublette said the juvenile justice system is seeing too many students processed through the school to prison pipeline.
“A lot of what used to be a playground fight for example, back in our day, now these result in the arrest of a kid,” he said.
He said this proposal would not affect the more than 180 school resource officers already on campus, but it would replace the 15 non-sworn security guards.
“We’re simply replacing our security force with sworn law enforcement officers and we’re transitioning into that,” Sublette said. “That will take us about a year to get that law enforcement certification.”
Those security guards could reapply for their positions if they have the certification or law enforcement background. The district would also hire five new officers this year and seven more next year.
Officials said they have the police force money budgeted, but they would need more than $40,000 for certifications and new software, plus a $13,000 salary boost for the sworn officers.
The school board said this isn’t the first time a school district created a police force, and cited counties like Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough and Palm Beach for already making the move.
“We’re hoping that it actually lessens the number of arrests on our campuses day to day,” Sublette said.
Oh, goody. I can see it now, MRAPS cruising school grounds while M4 toting guards patrol the halls looking for kids late for classes. Good conditioning for future prison life.
“The idea to create a police force came from a consultant’s recommendation after the Sandy Hook tragedy.”
Yeah, we figured it would. You manufactured the problem to enact your solution. One of them is real and we get to pay for it in every way.
a school police force… yeah like what could go wrong here..(sarc)
hey folks you got the warning to get your kids out of public schools a long time ago..WTF are you waiting for?
SMDH