BATH - As students returned to Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Fla. two weeks after 17 students and teachers died in an armed attack, Steuben County Sheriff Jim Allard said he favors an increase in state funds for school resource officers (SROs), social workers and guidance counselors. Steuben now has nine armed SROs in seven school districts, and two deputies assigned to the two BOCES campuses in Hornell and Painted Post. In the Corning-Painted Post district Steuben provides three SROs, two at the high school and one at the middle school. All Steuben SROs have at least twenty years of policing experience and have attended and completed the ALERRT active shooter training course. Steuben’s five-year-old program hires recently retired police officers whose post retirement earnings are capped at $30,000 annually within any government agency due to NYS pension regulations. Allard said an increase in salary would not benefit individual officers as much as would an increase in reimbursable aid to school districts. "The increase in reimbursable aid would allow schools to provide additional SROs beyond the current coverage," Allard said.
Allard said funding more SRO positions is a better option than firearm training for schoolteachers. "Without the adequate mindset, training or physical conditioning, the armed teacher is likely to become a target of opportunity for a determined attacker to arm themselves from the very firearm carried by the teacher," Allard said. "That reduces the effectiveness of physical security barriers to bringing a weapon on school grounds by an attacker." Allard said in the civilian police academy all students participate in a reality-based "use of force" scenario. "What we experienced was that in a first time use of force situation, some students utilized deadly physical force without justification, some did not use force when justified and some simply froze," he said. "And this occurred in a controlled training environment, not in a real situation, in which the body is reacting to an adrenaline onset and attempting to function during a traumatic moment of immense crisis."
