District administrators presented a proposal to the board to add a second school resource officer (SRO) at the Jan. 15 meeting, and board members held an extended discussion about the program’s purpose, costs, alternatives and comparable staffing in peer districts.

Mrs. Bennett said the district currently contracts with the Franklin Police Department for 70% of the top officer’s salary for its existing SRO and that the district has applied for a federal COPS grant in past years without success. She described the current arrangement where the SRO covers the high school and middle school on alternating days, and “adopt-a-school” patrol officers visit elementary schools more sporadically; administrators said that coverage can leave the SRO stretched when multiple incidents or trainings occur.

Bennett presented comparative examples: nearby districts had between one and four SROs depending on district size, and the presentation suggested Franklin is understaffed by those standards. She estimated a district share in the ballpark of $100,000 for a new SRO depending on the officer assigned (the district share reflects the arrangement to pay a portion of an officer’s compensation, not a separate hire).

Board members and staff discussed program trade-offs: supporters said an SRO builds ongoing relationships with students, contributes to threat-assessment follow-up and can deliver prevention education in curricula; others asked for more data on frequency of SRO interventions and asked whether existing “adopt-a-school” patrols could be expanded at lower cost. The board asked staff to provide usage or incident data to demonstrate how often SRO services are used in ways that would justify the recurring cost.

No motion to add a second SRO was recorded on Jan. 15; the item remained in discussion and board members asked for follow-up data and a clearer estimate of the recurring cost before a decision.