Habersham County Schools have been ranked among the 25 safest systems in the state for the past five years, and Superintendent Matthew Cooper and Sheriff Joey Terrell want to maintain that.
Monday night, the board of education approved pulling some $400,000 from reserve funds to add six additional school resource officers for next school year, placing one in every Habersham County school.
“This will bring our total force of resource officers to 14,” Cooper said. “Sheriff Joey Terrell and his office are partnering with the school system to make this happen. Sheriff Terrell has been very supportive, and he and I stand together believing that it’s time to have a resource officer in every school.”
Safety has been Cooper’s priority since he joined the school system more than 10 years ago. He has said numerous times students cannot learn if they are not in a safe environment.
As of the end of the school year, the Habersham County School System had eight school resource officers and, the day following the Uvalde school shooting, those officers and others from throughout the area responded to a parent involved in an off-campus incident with a gun.
Cooper said the sheriff’s office already is working to hire and train the officers, but it will not happen overnight.
“Please understand it will take some time to find and train these additional officers, but the sheriff’s office is already working toward this goal,” Cooper said. “While we have many other safety initiatives in place, having a resource officer in every school is now our top safety priority.”
