Most Elk Grove Village trustees responded favorably Tuesday night to a proposal to have a youth police officer posted at Mead Junior High School for the 1998-99 school year.
In a straw poll, trustees voted 5-1 to go ahead with the plan after hearing a presentation by Marianne Zito, deputy superintendent of Schaumburg-based Elementary School District 54.
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The “student resource officer” at the school, 1765 Biesterfield Rd., would be “an additional caring adult,” Zito said. She added that the officer’s primary role would be to educate pupils and provide counseling.
Village Trustee Pat Feichter voted against the idea, saying such duties already are performed by the school’s full-time social worker.
District 54’s four other junior high schools, in Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates, already have youth officers, Zito said.
Mayor Craig Johnson received assurances from representatives of the police department and school district that the youth officer would not carry a gun. “I’d hate to see us go down the path that we’d have to have armed people in our schools,” Johnson said.