Robert Kline and Kevin Wright, who both currently work for Sheriff’s Office, will start at the schools in January.
The Oglethorpe Echo
Two school resource officers (SROs) have been hired for Oglethorpe County School System and are expected to begin in January.
Robert Kline and Kevin Wright were selected in a nearly unanimous decision.
The Board of Education approved the hiring of two SROs in September — one to cover the high school and another to be shared among the middle, primary and soon-to-be elementary school.
The cost of the SRO salaries will be shared between the county and the school district.
Sheriff David Gabriel said he went into the interviews with an open mind, but had an idea of what he wanted in the first SROs in the county.
“I was actually a resource officer myself for a number of years in Clarke County,” Gabriel said. “School environments are very different than regular law enforcement. It takes a special kind of person.”
Superintendent Beverley Levine agreed.
“It’s all about connecting with kids,” Levine said, “getting kids to trust them, to help with preventative types of things.”
After a public call posted by the Oglethorpe Sheriff’s Office on Facebook seeking applicants for the SRO roles, a committee of nine from the BOE and the Sheriff’s Office interviewed several applicants.
Both of the applicants are current law enforcement officers, but that was not a requirement.
Kline serves the Sheriff’s Office as a jailer, but has also worked in dispatch. Additionally, he is a volunteer firefighter with the Wesley Chapel station and teaches the Choosing Healthy Activities and Methods Promoting Safety (C.H.A.M.P.S.) program to the county’s fifth-graders.
Gabriel said Kline’s placement at the middle and elementary schools was in part because of his connection with C.H.A.M.P.S.
Wright, a night-shift officer with the Sheriff’s Office and former military medic, will be the primary officer for OCHS, but both officers could be utilized at any of the schools during or after the school day.
“They'll work all after school activities,” Gabriel said. “Even things that traditionally we had not had somebody at like soccer, basketball games.”
Both Wright and Kline will go through training prior to their start date, and will participate in yearly training in the summers to stay up to date on their certification and skills.
The 40-hour course will “will equip officers with the baseline knowledge, skills and techniques to engage students, work with supportive staff, and protect school grounds,” according to the Georgia Public Safety Training Center.