Chief Anthony Davis of the Clinton Police Department told the Board of Education on Aug. 20 that the department assigns a full‑time school resource officer (SRO) to Clinton High School, Sampson Middle School and Sunset Avenue School, with additional officers splitting time between Butler Avenue and L.C. Carr and one officer serving as SRO supervisor.

Chief Davis said SROs and patrol officers handled 104 incident reports across school campuses in the past year. He provided context for school safety in the city overall: “We answered nearly 17,000 calls for service across the city last year with around 3,600 reports, and only a 100 of those come from the school system,” he said.

Training is a sustained part of the SRO program, Davis said. Clinton officers attended the North Carolina Association of School Resource Officers conference where sessions included threat assessments, active assailant response, gang influence on youth and mental health for SROs; the Clinton SRO sergeant serves on that state association’s board. The SRO division also conducts campus safety assessments, attends school events and supports summer programming.

Davis listed programs the department is exploring with school leaders, pending approvals: Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) programming, CyberSwat, Students Against Violence Everywhere (SAVE), SEED (Supporting, Educating, Empowering, and Development) and SHINE (Safety, Healthy, Interactive, Nurturing, and Empowerment). He said SRO responses and decisions are governed case‑by‑case by student history, officer discretion, departmental policy and applicable law.

Board members asked about training for events outside school buildings (for example, sports events); Davis said active‑assailant and single‑response training is taught for indoor and outdoor settings and the department can partner with the district on such exercises. No formal policy or contract changes were voted at the meeting; the report was informational.