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Darke County Sheriff
Sheriff
provides School Resource Officers to FM and MV
Darke County Sheriff Toby L. Spencer will provide a School Resource
Officer (SRO) to twoDarke County school districts this school
year. The Darke County Sheriff’s Office will partner with
Franklin Monroe Schools and Mississinawa Valley Schools by providing a
fulltime deputy sheriff to be split between the two school
districts. The cost to provide this deputy will be out of the
Sheriff’s budget for this school year. The schools have only been
asked to pay for instructional materials that may be required for
programs that will be conducted by the deputy.
The two school districts were chosen because they are the only two
school districts that reside outside of a city or village limit and the
Darke County Sheriff’s Office is their primary law enforcement
agency. Other school districts in the county fall within
municipal limits that have existing police departments. Several
of these agencies provide SRO’s to their schools.
The Darke County Sheriff’s Office has been in discussion with the
Superintendents of Franklin-Monroe and Mississinawa Valley since the
spring in anticipation of providing this service. Both school
districts have welcomed the SRO with open arms.
Sheriff Spencer has assigned Deputy Sheriff Josh Brinley to be the
SRO. Deputy Brinley is a military veteran and has been with the
Darke County Sheriff’s Office for over 16 years. He is married
with children of his own and is experienced in presenting programs in a
school setting as a deputy. He completed SRO school back in the
fall of last year and has been connecting with experienced SRO’s in the
area. Deputy Brinley has been a part of the discussions and
preparation with the administration of both school districts.
Deputy Brinley will be assigned to the schools as his fulltime job when
school is in session for 40 hours a week. The goal is to provide
each school with 20 hours of service each week. The schedule will
not be set for security reasons and to allow for Deputy Brinley to have
flexibility in providing services to each school and address any
special issues that might arise at one school or another. As a
rule Deputy Brinley will be in a uniform and a marked Sheriff’s cruiser
will be present at the school during his duty. He is encouraged
to participate in special school functions when time allows.
The SRO program is designed to fulfill three roles in concert with
school administration. They are 1) Law Enforcement 2) Crime
Prevention 3) Education. The educational component will be conducted
through cooperation with school officials. Examples of
presentations may include drug awareness and education, bullying,
conflict resolution, personal and social responsibility.
Although there are memorandums of understanding in place, Sheriff
Spencer has not asked for compensation from the school districts at
this point. This is the first year we have implemented the
program and we all wanted to start with as few strings attached between
the Sheriff’s Office and the school districts as possible. At the
conclusion of the school year the SRO program will be evaluated by all
partners on its effectiveness. If the program is deemed of value
and a determination is made to continue the program, funding will be
discussed as well as long term goals and objectives.
Sheriff Spencer looks forward to the opportunity to serve and protect
our most valuable resource in the county which is our youth. He
has desired to establish this important partnership with our local
schools in order to provide a closer connection to our young citizens
and provide a positive role model to our youth.
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