SANDWICH – The Sandwich School District 430 is exploring the possibility of having a police officer at the high school.
Principal Tom Sodaro attended the June 11 City Council meeting to see how council members felt about the proposal, which was up for discussion, but not a vote.
First Ward Alderman Richard Robinson said he is in favor of the city working with the school district to provide a police officer in the high school.
“My thought is, will we have to hire an additional person? I would prefer for them to get by with their present manpower at the beginning,” he said.
Robinson said he had talked briefly with Police Chief Jim Bianchi about this, but said a decision about whether to put an officer in the high school should not be dependent on whether the city hires an additional officer.
Sodaro said he has been working with the police to have a liaison in the high school to work with the students to make sure that those needs are met.
“The police do a great job now, but obviously having someone in the building working with the kids, with traffic and things like that would be a great addition to have right now,” Sodaro said.
When interviewed after the meeting, Sodaro said the district has been talking about having a resource officer at the high school and to visit other school buildings throughout the day.
He said this officer would be a liaison officer between the school and police department working with the students so they could know the officer and gain their respect.
The officer would be there to help with any criminal activity and basically be an extra link that many districts have, but Sandwich does not, Sodaro said.
He said the police department is discussing whether the officer should be full-time. He said a 50-50 split for the financial responsibility of paying the officer’s salary has been discussed.
During the summer, the officer would work exclusively for the police department.
Sodaro said he prefers the officer be a sworn city police officer who can work directly with the police station. He said the officer would be assigned to the 700-student high school, but would be expected to also spend time in the district’s other five schools.
Mayor Rick Olson said the issue will be on the council agenda at the next meeting.