Hamilton County to Guarantee Officers in Every School

A group of officials and education representatives meeting to announce that every Hamilton County school will have an officer.

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (WDEF)- After the Covenant School Shooting in Nashville that left six people dead including three children, the state legislature passed funding for a school resource officer in every public school.

In the Spring, $140 million was made available to school districts across the state to achieve that goal of placing an officer in every school.

Today, Hamilton County Sheriff Austin Garrett made the announcement that Hamilton County will be the first to achieve this goal.

Sheriff Garrett said, “We don’t intend to be fourth place in anything, we intend to be number one, especially when it comes to our kids.”

Hamilton County will have a school resource officer in every school in the coming months.

This is achieved primarily through the Sheriff Office’s program, which will take care of 32 of these positions.

The Sheriff says due to a pay raise and recruiting efforts, they’ve been able to eliminate existing vacancies in the program.

Sheriff Garrett said, “In recent years we’ve seen vacancies in the school resource program reach numbers exceeding 12 deputies.”

In addition to previous partnerships with the Chattanooga Police Department, East Ridge and Soddy-Daisy have agreed to staff some of their officers in local schools.

East Ridge Police will have four officers staffing schools in their jurisdiction, and Soddy-Daisy Police will have two officers staffing charter schools in their jurisdiction.

This is part of the other big announcement Friday, as all 8 charter schools in Hamilton County will be included in the program.

Brad Scott, the CEO of Chattanooga Preparatory School, said, “They’re public school students, their families pay tax dollars right here in Hamilton County. They chose to send their sons, represented beside me, to a public charter school.”

Some of these include Chattanooga School of Excellence, Montessori Elementary at Highland Park, and the Ivy Academy.

They hope the investment in the safety of charter schools extends beyond Hamilton County.

Emily Lilley, the Vice President of External Affairs at Tennessee said, “I agree with the Sheriff that it would be great if this were a model for the rest of the state. Hamilton County is doing a really good job of recognizing that charter schools are part of public school districts, part of the public school community.”

Sheriff Garrett says the final four new deputies who will be joining the program will start their training on August 23rd.

Hamilton County Schools told us on Wednesday they had a count of 79 officers total in the school system, a number which will rise with this announcement.