All Hamilton County Schools will soon have school resource deputies

HAMILTON COUNTY, Tenn. (WDEF) — The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office announced that their School Resource Deputy (SRD) unit is now fully staffed.

The HCSO recently hired three new SRDs. However, they must first go through weeks of training before receiving a school assignment.

Once all these deputies finish training, the sheriff said every Hamilton County school and charter school will have a school resource officer/deputy.

Sheriff Austin Garrett speaking at the August 11, 2023 press conference regarding the expansion of the School Resource Deputy Program / HCSO

“In order to make this unprecedented success a reality, my staff and I, along with support from County Mayor Weston Wamp and the Hamilton County Commission, implemented an agency-wide pay increase for our personnel and established a new and robust recruitment campaign to help recruit qualified and experienced personnel not only in our SRD Unit, but throughout our entire agency,” said HCSO Sheriff Austin Garrett. “We have stayed the course and remained committed to filling these vacancies and we are now seeing the fruits of our labor.”

Back in August, Sheriff Garrett announced his plan to bring SRDs to all Hamilton County charter schools. There are eight charter schools in Hamilton County. Two charter schools are staffed by the Soddy Daisy Police Department and two are staffed by the Chattanooga Police Department. In addition, four are staffed by the East Ridge Police Department, the sheriff said.

The HCSO has hired 19 SRDs since September 2022, according to Sheriff Garrett.

The sheriff’s office employs 36 total SRDs, four sergeants and one lieutenant for the School Resource Deputy Unit. This unit covers 36 schools in Hamilton County.

“As a senior state senator, public safety – particularly in our schools – remains a top priority. This includes attracting and recruiting qualified SRDs and officers to serve and protect in our schools across Hamilton County. This is no easy task, and I want to personally commend Sheriff Garrett, his team and our community who worked hard to bring this together – including the state delegation, Hamilton County and surrounding municipalities which helped ensure it was funded,” said Senator Bo Watson.

Governor Bill Lee’s Statewide School Resource Officer Program Grant made this expansion possible, the sheriff’s office explained. The grant provides necessary funding to add one full-time school resource officer to every K-12 public and charter school in the state of Tennessee.