CITY POLICE WANT FULL-TIME RESOURCE OFFICER IN SCHOOLS

The Weyburn city police is asking school boards in the area to help it fund
a full-time officer to be devoted to a school presence.

Inspector Russ Chartrand spoke to the Sunrise School Board at its regular
meeting on Feb. 9.

No decision was made during the meeting but the board supports the idea,
said Education Director Jan Chell. Education about drug and alcohol use is
part of the education curriculum and a police officer makes a good teacher
for it, she said.

The whole SchoolPlus initiative in Saskatchewan is based on the
understanding that it takes a community to raise a child, so all agencies
need to be on the same team when it comes to raising positive and
responsible students, she said.

Chell said the board hopes to have the full-time officer available to
schools by this fall.

Inspector Chartrand told The Review the request is not a result of a crime
increase among young people, but is a preventive, educational approach to
increase their comfort level with police.

Officers have taught the DARE program, as well as bicycle safety and
numerous other courses in the city's nine schools for years but no one
person was responsible for the whole program, he said.

A dedicated school officer would arrange his/her working hours to the
school day and serve as a resource officer for students, as well as to
deliver programs, he said.

"It's fairly commonplace in a lot of communities to have a full-time police
resource officer in the schools and we felt it was time to move in that
direction," said Chartrand.

In other business at the meeting, the board agreed to send board chair
Donna Quigley to the rural caucus meeting of the Saskatchewan School Boards
Association.

Sunrise has both urban and rural schools so it doesn't fit into either of
the SSBA's categories.

SSBA's structure will probably change after next year when amalgamation
leaves only a couple of entirely rural boards in the whole province, said
Chell. Most boards will be a combination of rural and urban after
amalgamation, she said.

Amalgamation is to be complete by Jan. 1, 2006, with the election of a new
board to represent the entire southeast expected some time this year.