When students return to Lexington County classrooms this month, each of their schools will have its own school resource officer.

Lexington County Sheriff Jay Koon told the Chronicle that his deputies along with officers from other local agencies will fill in previous gaps to ensure that, for the first time in the county’s history, every school within its borders will have a dedicated law enforcement officer assigned to it.

“It's an exciting day,” Koon said, “a long time coming.”

Providing school resource officers (commonly referred to as SROs) to county schools has been and will continue to be a team effort, with various agencies within the county contributing officers within their jurisdictions and the sheriff’s department now providing 39 officers. Sheriff’s deputies will now cover 35 schools, including Chapin High, Irmo High, Lexington High and White Knoll High, where two SROs are on duty.

“As a parent and as someone who has a wife that’s a tenured teacher, I know the importance and it's just the safety and security of our students and faculty,” Koon said of why making this happen was an emphasis for him. “The kids are our future and they're the most precious thing we have, and it's our duty to do everything in our power to make them safe.”

While no school was left completely without an SRO before, a few elementary schools had an officer for only a portion of the day, with the officers assigned there covering two schools. As a result of the change, Pleasant Hill Elementary, Carolina Springs Elementary, White Knoll Elementary and Centerville Elementary – all belonging to Lexington County School District 1, the largest district in the county – will now have permanent SROs.

As of the most recent student headcounts available from the state Department of Education, those schools have a total of nearly 3,300 students.

Koon said Lexington 1 and Lexington-Richland School District 5 are his department’s main coverage areas for SROs, with the agency otherwise only supplying one officer to District 2 and three to District 4. Lexington County School District 3, which falls entirely within the Town of Batesburg-Leesville, is served by that municipality’s police department.

The sheriff told the Chronicle that moving forward, his department will be there to fill the gap if another agency is unable to fill an SRO position, adding that the department will be willing to aid in all emergency situations or if extra support for a large event is requested.

According to Koon, the infusion of new SROs was accomplished in three major ways – with existing officers volunteering to be placed at a school, some officers being hired to be SROs from outside the department and officers from other agencies within the county being moved into SRO positions.

Capt. Adam Myrick, public information officer for the sheriff’s department, specified that the department hired four new SROs while six existing deputies volunteered to be placed at schools.

Koon said making these hires was a challenging task, due to ongoing recruitment and retention difficulties. But he gave credit to Lexington County Council and County Administrator Lynn Sturkie for helping the department with pay raises over the past year, allowing them to offer a competitive salary.

He also credited Gov. Henry McMaster and state legislators for making the expansion possible by allocating funds.

The sheriff said that school safety requires a layered approach and that nothing is going to be 100% foolproof. He mentioned that some schools have incorporated additional security measures like camera systems, alarms and metal detectors to provide extra protection.

Koon emphasized that officers having a physical presence within schools is important, touching on the recent rash of bomb threats that schools, both nationwide and in the Midlands, have experienced through social media. He said law enforcement being visible through a school resource officer allows law enforcement to build rapport with and get information from faculty and students.

“They're my employees, but they're in somebody else's kingdom, so to speak,” Koon said of his resource officers. “They have to go in there and enforce the laws of state, my policies and then help with school policy. They don’t always want to enforce the school policy, but they have to be mindful of it, and they’ve got to walk hand in hand through it.”

SROs maintaining a visible presence includes such activities as greeting students when they come into a school.

Koon noted that resource officers don’t have set rounds and will sometimes be requested by a teacher or principal to do something to help out.

“It’s really a lot like what we do every day on the street, just in a school environment,” he said.

The sheriff told the Chronicle that some municipal law enforcement agencies want to take responsibility for supplying resource officers in their jurisdiction.

“They saw the benefit of having their own people in that school,” Koon said. “Because typically if there's an issue in that school, it spills out to the local community.”

According to a release, the police departments serving Batesburg-Leesville, Cayce, Irmo, Gaston, Lexington, Pelion, Pine Ridge, Swansea and West Columbia all have officers assigned to schools within their jurisdiction.

Local school districts emphasized the important functions that SROs provide.

Amanda Taylor, director of communications for District 5 (which serves Irmo, Chapin and parts of Columbia), told the Chronicle that having a permanent resource officer provides necessary reassurance that safety is the district's highest priority. She added that the presence of an officer allows for teaching and learning to occur everyday.

Dawn Kujawa, public information officer for Lexington 2 (which serves West Columbia, Cayce and Springdale), specified that each school in the district has a resource officer, with the SROs being supplied from six different law enforcement agencies.

“They know our school safety plans, they know our schools, they assist with our practice drills, and they continuously share ways to improve,” she said. “They are in touch regularly with district and school administrators – including our own director of security and risk – to talk about school and community safety. They are a direct line to law enforcement in any emergency.”

This is a developing story and will continue to be updated.