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Leon County Superintendent Wants More Police In Schools

FILE PHOTO
Leon Superintendent Jackie Pons

Leon County Superintendent Jackie Pons says he wants a student resource officer in every school.  The idea is up for consideration in the Florida Legislature.

The Florida House K–12 Subcommittee discussed the role of student resource officers in a school safety meeting Wednesday. Leon School Safety Director John Hunkiar says the officer program is their top security measure. District Superintendent Jackie Pons says he’s proud of Leon County’s officer program.

"It’s not the idea of having somebody on your campus with a gun," Pons says, "it’s the idea about having somebody that we teach our students to respect, to love, that they can go to and talk about any issues related to students’ safety."

Hunkiar says the officers also deal with complex issues, such as child custody. Leon County’s entire Safe Schools Appropriations budget is used for this program and the sheriff’s office splits the cost. A resource officer stationed at Leon High School recently arrested a student who threatened another student with a knife.

Ashley Tressel is a senior Communication and English student at Florida State University. Before WFSU, she interned at the Executive Office of the Governor and The Borgen Project, a national nonprofit for global poverty. She also wrote freelance for Carbonated.tv, a multimedia news site and served as managing editor for the FSU International Programs magazine, Nomadic Noles, in Valencia, Spain. After graduation, Ashley plans to embark on her journalism career somewhere in Colorado.