NOBLESVILLE, Ind. — You may have safety on your mind as your child heads back to school this month.
In Noblesville, they have been taking safety to the next level at schools over the last four years. Since 2018, Noblesville residents have been shelling out enough money in tax dollars to pay for a school resource officer to be stationed at every school in the district.
“With the passing of our referendum in 2018, it’s allowed us to put an officer in every one of our buildings which has made a huge impact,” said Heather Hendrich, Superintendent of Human Resources and Safety for Noblesville Schools on WISH-TV.
With the program being successful since 2018, she is hoping other school districts use their approach as a model to do the same.
“The main reason, I think, everyone wants us in the building is to stop that bad thing from happening in our buildings,” said Sgt. Andrew Reiss with Noblesville Police. “Our officers are going to go towards the threat and attempt to take care of the situation. We’ve been doing that since I got here at Noblesville and our training continues to be that same thing.”
Reiss said the program, paid for with referendum money, does more than just provide protection for kids at school.
“We engage with our kids,” Reiss said. “We do everything we can to help them survive college or high school and life so that they can move on to whether it’s college or somewhere else and do so successfully.”
Reiss said that another issue that might be a hang-up for other districts to pursue similar programs is money. He acknowledges some districts don’t have the funds to be able to staff officers in every building, but he said the cost is worth it for those that do.
