Pubdate: Wed, 16 Feb 2005 Source: Weyburn Review (CN SN) Copyright: 2005 Weyburn Review Ltd. Contact: http://www.weyburnreview.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2157 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth) CITY POLICE WANT FULL-TIME RESOURCE OFFICER IN SCHOOLS The Weyburn city police is asking school boards in the area to help it fund a full-time officer to be devoted to a school presence. Inspector Russ Chartrand spoke to the Sunrise School Board at its regular meeting on Feb. 9. No decision was made during the meeting but the board supports the idea, said Education Director Jan Chell. Education about drug and alcohol use is part of the education curriculum and a police officer makes a good teacher for it, she said. The whole SchoolPlus initiative in Saskatchewan is based on the understanding that it takes a community to raise a child, so all agencies need to be on the same team when it comes to raising positive and responsible students, she said. Chell said the board hopes to have the full-time officer available to schools by this fall. Inspector Chartrand told The Review the request is not a result of a crime increase among young people, but is a preventive, educational approach to increase their comfort level with police. Officers have taught the DARE program, as well as bicycle safety and numerous other courses in the city's nine schools for years but no one person was responsible for the whole program, he said. A dedicated school officer would arrange his/her working hours to the school day and serve as a resource officer for students, as well as to deliver programs, he said. "It's fairly commonplace in a lot of communities to have a full-time police resource officer in the schools and we felt it was time to move in that direction," said Chartrand. In other business at the meeting, the board agreed to send board chair Donna Quigley to the rural caucus meeting of the Saskatchewan School Boards Association. Sunrise has both urban and rural schools so it doesn't fit into either of the SSBA's categories. SSBA's structure will probably change after next year when amalgamation leaves only a couple of entirely rural boards in the whole province, said Chell. Most boards will be a combination of rural and urban after amalgamation, she said. Amalgamation is to be complete by Jan. 1, 2006, with the election of a new board to represent the entire southeast expected some time this year. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom