Dublin ISD approved a memo of understanding for three full-time School Resource Officers for the upcoming school year, pending approval by city council in August.
Each DISD campus will have an officer, according to Police Chief Cameron Ray, along with those school employees as part of the Guardian Program, totaling 39 across all campuses.
This is partially to be in compliance with House Bill 3, which takes effect in September after passing through legislation requiring an armed officer at each campus throughout the state.
SROs will include Corporal Jacob Ivey, Officer Brandi Hoffman and Officer Jacob Carpenter for the year.
The city will only have the officers for about two weeks in the summer and the district will pay 95% of their salaries.
The district will also continue to fund an officer at all games.
“We are guaranteeing to back fill with an officer if an SRO is sick,” Ray said.
Superintendent Melissa Summers praised Ray and the department on the great job they have done in the past and said she was looking forward to continuing the relationship with the city.
“To watch the collaboration between the school district and the city has been amazing,” Board President Bob Cervetto said. “It continues to grow.”
The Guardians (armed staff members that undergo intense training) were also approved at the meeting.
This year, the training has included increased simulation and range time, Summers said.
Instruction comes from Tac Pro and they told Summers this year that DISD is their model program of how SROs and Guardians can work together for school safety.
DISD has been part of the Guardian program for seven years.
The district also gave all administrators a 2% raise across the board after holding off on their raises until the legislation settled school finance and property tax reform.
The board approved a proposed property tax rate which is higher than last year. The total proposed tax rate is approved at $1.0992 with $0.9492 per $100 valuation for Maintenance and Operations (MNO) and $0.15 for Interest and Sinking (INS).
Business Manager Kassi Eads explained that the actual tax rate is expected to be lower, but the district cannot go higher than the proposed tax rate.
Since the legislation approved an increase to $100,000 homestead exemption from $40,000 (must still be approved by voters in November), the district is having to raise the INS rate to cover debt services.
In this year’s budget, the district will be looking at new safety classroom doors and anticipates replacing these at each campus every budget year.
The new doors can be opened with a passcode by a teacher, administrator or SRO and all be locked down at once in case of an active shooter situation.