Police provide full-time officer for Atascadero schools
Board approves two-year agreement for district campuses
–The Atascadero Unified School District board approved a two-year agreement on May 16, to appoint an Atascadero Police Department officer to work full-time on district campuses as a school resource officer (SRO).
The new SRO position will take the place of probation officer provided to the district by the SLO County Sherriff’s Office, reports say. The program is expected to start at the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year.
The program is not due to any troubling trends in the city’s youth, officials say. The as yet unnamed SRO will most likely be a veteran officer currently working on the police force. The plain clothes SRO will have a presence on all school campuses, with a primary focus on high schools.
The position will handle campus law enforcement including drugs, weapons, and violence, in addition to implementing programs such as “teen court” to discipline students committing lower level crimes, such as vandalism, without sending them into the criminal justice system.
