OSCEOLA COUNTY, Fla. — Law enforcement leaders expressed support for replacing school resource officers with guardians at charter schools during a workshop Thursday to present an advisory group’s recommendations on how to keep Osceola County school campuses safer.
What You Need To Know
- Guardians could replace resource officers at charter schools, officials say
- Law enforcement leaders made the recommendation to school board
- The advisory group seeks to find says to make Osceola schools safer
- School board members asked for more detailed presentation
The School Resource Officer Task Force was formed after a video that circulated across the country showed an SRO taking down a student at Liberty High.
“I am pro-guardian,” Osceola County Sheriff Marcos Lopez said. “I've looked at Grady Judd’s program, Wayne Ivey’s program....You’re talking about so many counties in the state of Florida are going to this and are having zero type of incidents. So why not?”
Osceola County school board members were not convinced.
“Deputies fulfill much more roles to the community,” school board member Jon Arguello said. “You’re there to establish a relationship with the community. These are the people who protect us on a daily basis. So if you put in a guardian, you have removed that.”
The sheriff and police chiefs were asked to come up with a detailed presentation about what the guardian program would look like if implemented. The school board also asked for charter schools to be brought in to the discussion to weigh in on the matter.
A date for the next meeting has not been scheduled yet.