The City of Sioux Falls is changing the program with Student Resource Officers in schools. Police look to replicate what they did with their street patrols a few years back. This change is scheduled to increase the number of Student Resource Officers in the city.
With the city of Sioux Falls continually growing, police are constantly looking at ways to keep students in schools safe. Currently there is one student resource officer in each high school and middle school in the city. The police department plans to increase the current eleven officers to 15. Police Chief Doug Barthel says instead of just having one officer assigned to a specific school, there can now be a team assigned to a specific area of schools.
"You might see one officer there one day and a week later you might see a different officer there. Change can sometimes be good, officers bring in different ideas. They all have there own set of skills that they might bring to the table that can help with different issues they have in the schools," Chief Barthel says.
Barthel says Harrisburg South Dakota is opening two more schools in the fall, which are located in the Sioux Falls city limits. He says the police department plans to split the city into four quadrants in which officers can be assigned. Barthel says some of the kinks are still being worked out with scheduling but by Fall the new plan should be ready to go.