Grant hoping to put a security officer in every East Tennessee school

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - More than 60,000 students in Knox County returned to school Thursday for the 2024-2025 school year.

It marks the start of the first school year after Gov. Bill Lee passed millions of dollars in school security funding in his special-called session and in the regular session.

There are two different types of school security personnel, a school security officer and a school resource officer.

An SSO is armed school security. They are trained and employed by the school system.

An SRO is an armed law enforcement officer assigned to a school. They work for local law enforcement agencies like the Knoxville Police Department or the Knox County Sheriff’s Office.

Previous Coverage: Knox County Schools leaders outline security investments ahead of new school year

Knox County Schools said they increased SSOs by 20%, adding there were more than 120 in the school system.

KPD officials told WVLT News they have 46 schools inside their jurisdiction. Of the 46, seven will have an SRO at all times.

“Those SROs will also respond to issues that arise at other schools in their area as needed,” KPD officials said.

KCSO reported they had 42 schools inside its jurisdiction, and of those, they have 31 SROs and four supervisors for the 2024 school year.

“Assignments are based on multiple factors. A SRO may not be in the school the entire day because they are assigned multiple schools if there is not individual coverage dedicated solely to that school. Those decisions are based on locations and proximities to other schools (elementary, middle, and high may be all on same campus). Regardless, every school is assigned an officer and additionally those schools are located in patrol zones covered by the Patrol Division that will respond to any event if needed.”

During Lee’s regular session, lawmakers made four different grants that law enforcement agencies and school districts can apply for, all aimed at upping officer presence inside schools.

The Statewide School Resource Officer Grant was created for local law enforcement agencies to apply so an armed SRO can be at every public school.

If a department is approved for the grant, they get up to $75,000 per year, per school inside their jurisdiction.

WVLT News obtained the School Security and SRO Grant Report for the second and third quarters of the last school year.

The report breaks down the information by county, listing the schools eligible, schools in the SRO program and schools in the program that have a full time SRO.

To be in the SRO program, a school has to be listed on what’s called a Memorandum of Understanding between the school system and a local law enforcement agency.

For example, Knox County has 92 eligible schools. In the quarter two report, only 7% of those schools were in the SRO program and 100% had full time SROs. Those are the seven schools listed on the memorandums between the school system and KPD.

KCSO entered their memorandums with the 42 schools inside their jurisdiction.

This change took the percentage of schools in the program from 7% to 52% with all of the schools in the SRO program having a full-time SRO, according to the report.

Knox County Schools administrators told WVLT News there is at least one SSO in every school.

All 95 counties got funding for SROs and more than $101.7 million of state funding was disbursed through the grant program, according to the report.