There will no longer be a police presence at two Morinville schools next fall because the Catholic school board has withdrawn the funding for a school resource officer.
Last week Coun. Lisa Holmes presented the Town of Morinville with a letter from the Greater St. Albert Catholic School Division, announcing its decision to withdraw from the agreement that saw a local RCMP officer spend time at Georges H. Primeau middle school and Morinville Community High School.
Under a partnership agreement that was last renewed two years ago, the Town of Morinville, the Catholic school board and Sturgeon School Division provided the funding for an RCMP school resource officer.
“The lion’s share of that was paid for by us,” said David Keohane, superintendant for the Catholic board.
The amount in question is the $60,000 paid by the Catholic school board for the RCMP school resource officer to spend three days a week in the two Morinville schools from September to June.
The officer visited schools in the Sturgeon division two days per week. The Town of Morinville covered the cost for the officer for the two summer months.
Greater St. Albert Catholic School Board had an operating budget shortfall of $1.38 million for the 2010/2011 school year, and paying for a police resource officer is not possible, Keohane said.
“We do not receive any government funding for a police officer. We cannot sustain paying $60,000 for that officer because that means we would have to take $60,000 out of our schools,” he said.
School resource officers build a relationship with the youths in schools. Their position is two-fold because they serve in a prevention capacity and in an enforcement capacity. They also make regular presentations to youth and their parents about topics such as traffic laws and cyber bullying.
“The officer in Morinville is a valuable resource for our schools,” Keohane stressed.
Keohane is hopeful that having provided the required six months of notice to its partners, that the Catholic board, the Town of Morinville and Sturgeon School Division can work together to find other ways to support the youth in Morinville schools and the community with proactive policing.
“We must look for the silver lining in this, which is that the book is not closed. We had to trigger notice to move to the next step. We have to look at alternatives,” Keohane said, adding that his resesarch shows that other communities have solved the problem in different ways.
“In St. Albert the city pays for the school resource officers and Lethbridge has an ALERT team (Assisted Learning Environment Response Team),” he said.
But Andy Isbister, the Town of Morinville’s director of corporate services, could see no room for negotiating a change.
“There is no negotiation. They have withdrawn from the agreement,” Isbister said, as he explained that the Morinville’s budget included shared payment with the two school boards.
“We will pay for the resource officer as agreed for the months of July and August. Following that, we will continue with the Sturgeon School Division but the resource officer will not attend the Catholic schools and instead, for those three days, will be assigned to local policing,” Isbister said.
