By agreeing to pay the salary and benefits for a student resource officer, the board of Central Community Unit School District 301 hopes the person will serve at Central High School in Burlington.
Such benefits as worker’s compensation and insurance will be provided through the Kane County sheriff’s office, which once paid half of a resource officer’s salary for District 301. An intergovernmental agreement for the officer was recently approved by the school board.
“We have been without an updated intergovernmental agreement for some time,” said Superintendent Todd Stirn. “We have been working on this contract since last spring. This is the best deal we could get.”
The sheriff’s office employs and assigns those who serve as student resource officers. When schools are not in session, the officers are assigned to other duties.
During late summer 2016, Sheriff Donald Kramer announced he would pull the student resource officer from Central High School in Burlington and Kaneland High School in Maple Park, reportedly for lack of enough officers to police the county.
The department recently added eight new deputies, bringing the department to 85 sworn deputies, 122 corrections officers and 35 court security officers.
Stirn said the district has a preference for where the student resource officer should serve.
“We would like the officer to be stationed at Central High School in Burlington since we are paying the officer’s salary,” he said.
Kaneland Community Unit School District 302 will be reviewing the new agreement for possible use, Stirn said.
Denise Moran is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.