Bauxite Ark. Public Schools staff train to become school security officers
BAUXITE, Ark. December 3 2018 Bauxite Public Schools will soon have commissioned school security officers in addition to its one school resource officer. School officials say while no teachers will be armed, a handful of non-instructional staff volunteered to train to become CSSO’s. They’re expected to begin their new roles as early as January.
“The team of people in our district came together and basically asked people to volunteer, if they felt comfortable doing it, so no one who went through the training was asked to do it under pressure,” Tyler Broyles with Bauxite Public Schools said.
The volunteers underwent 60 hours of intensive training with law enforcement, Broyles explained. The school district says it wants CSSO’s on and around campuses should there ever be a school threat.
“Anyone who had, say, never held a gun before (if that were the case) has now been trained in carrying a weapon,” Broyles added.
For safety reasons, district officials won’t say how many CSSO’s there are, or who they are. Officials believe having CSSO’s at the schools serves as a preemptive measure to keep students safe.
“I think it is more settling to know that anyone carrying a weapon is not around students, because I know there is some concern as far as students seeing it or being attracted to it, so it’s the best practice that only non-instructional staff carry it to avoid that interaction with students,” Broyles added.
The decision to adopt the CSSO program was approved at a school board meeting back in September.
Bauxite CSSO’s will undergo an additional 12 hours of training each year in order to maintain their certification.
KATV
