Waxahachie Police Department reports SROs "doing well"; district schedules training and drills

Lieutenant Chris Dickinson of the Waxahachie Police Department told the Waxahachie ISD District Process Management Team that the district's school resource officers and marshals are performing well and that the department will continue joint training with district staff.

"The year's been good. We're we're at the home stretch. The SROs are good," Lieutenant Chris Dickinson said, adding that marshals are also performing as expected. Dickinson said the department and district are exploring training options observed at neighboring districts but are evaluating whether those approaches would suit Waxahachie ISD.

The nut graf: Campuses are actively running drills for the 2024-25 school year, with medical-hold drills reported as the most common type of exercise. Dickinson and district staff said they plan additional training sessions that take advantage of periods when students are not on campus so staff and marshals can use whole buildings for scenario-based exercises.

Staff reported that campuses are "actively drilling" and frequently conducting medical-hold procedures in response to on-site incidents or practice exercises. The Waxahachie Police Department confirmed it has training scheduled that will use district buildings when students are not present and that school marshals will receive additional training outside of school hours.

District participants discussed visiting a neighboring district to review its practices. Dickinson said, "We can schedule a training where we come out and we can train them the same way that we train the school staff inside." The group agreed to follow up to arrange dates and specifics. No new policies or expenditures were approved during the discussion.

The meeting concluded with a motion to adjourn; procedural votes including approval of the previous meeting minutes were handled by voice and recorded as approved in open session without numeric roll-call tallies in the transcript.