Ellwood City Area School District to Employ Armed Guards

Thanks to a grant, Ellwood City Area School District will have two armed school police officers.

The $156,400 grant provided by the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency will allow the district to employ the two officers for two years.

Superintendent Joseph Mancini said a security assessment’s findings led the district to apply for the grant and allocate the funding to be used to hire armed personnel. He said that assessment revealed that the Ellwood City School District was the only one in the county that did not have some type of security personnel on duty during school hours.

That along with the trend in violence across the country were the main motivations for the district to secure the grant.

“I think the kids would feel safer,” Mancini said. “We wanted to have a visible security presence.”

According to Mancini, the school police officers would be on duty only during school hours. One will be posted permanently in the High School and one will share time between Perry, Hartman, and North Side elementary schools. After school events and games will be covered by local police.

He said that typically these officers are retired from city or state police positions. Mancini said that the district will post job listings for the officers, and he hopes that they will be ready for the start of the next school year.

Although the officers will already have the training needed to serve as armed officers, Mancini said they will be expected to complete school resource officer training. That training will provide the officer with the know how when it comes to school based social and legal issues. According to the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO), the training program has three main areas of instruction:

• Function of Law Enforcement – Instruction on the differences between law enforcement when conducted inside a school environment.
• Mentoring Students – Instruction designed to provide tools to be a positive role model for youth, including informal counseling techniques.
• Guest Speaking – Instruction on a variety of instructional techniques as well as classroom management tools to provide law-related education to students.

“We want them to be able to talk to students, to be there for them, be able to interact with them,” Mancini said.

The plan, Mancini said, is multi faceted. Not only will the officers provide armed security, they will be present in daily school routines and will also serve an educational role.

He said the governor budgeted $60 million for this grant, and it was two-part. Part A was a guaranteed $25,000 going to each applicant. Part B was a competitive process with $40 million in funds going to districts based on needs. Mancini said there were about $177 million in grant requests.