WINDSOR LOCKS, Conn. — Windsor Locks is doing more to keep its schools safe. The decision was made to invest more money to hire additional school resource officers.
There are only four schools here in Windsor locks and by 2024 each school will have its own school resource officer.
“We’re coming to you saying that we’re bringing a partnership together saying that we’re willing to pay both sides of the aisle to fund our school safety,” said Windsor Locks superintendent, Shawn Parkhurst.
One by one, residents of Windsor Locks trickled into the town hall to find out whether schools would be getting additional school resource officers.
A decision was supposed to be made Tuesday night, but the town’s finance committee couldn’t agree on funding.
So Wednesday, the debate turned from whether it will be funded to how.
The Board of Finance ultimately voted to move the expense of the SROs to the Board of Education budget. This was after the superintendent spoke up to ask them to do that when a few board members weren’t in favor of allocating the funds to the police budget.
“When I felt like I needed to kind of save the conversation was when it shifted to how to fund the position,” said Parkhurst.
The board decided to allocate $110,000 to add these officers.
“Ultimately my goal was to have an officer in each school and that’s what we will achieve with that budget,” said Windsor Locks police chief, Eric Osanitsch.
While this meeting was already on the agenda, the tragedy in Nashville reignited the debate over the need for these SROs. Parent’s calling it a win for the community after a swatting incident in a couple of schools back in October.
“I don’t want anything like that happening in our little town. We already had a couple of scares, and we really don’t want it to actually happen so hopefully having the SROs will prevent that,” said Nicole Saavedre.
The town already has one school resource officer at the high school. Now, they will have one at the middle school and an elementary school by September and another one by the beginning of next year.
DeAndria Turner is a multi-media journalist at FOX61 News. She can be reached at dturner@fox61.com.
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