Kennewick schools struggling to hire its new security force. What’s the holdup?
Hiring is slow going for Kennewick’s new safety officer program.
The aim was to put an armed security guard in all 17 of its elementary schools this year.
The school district has found five safety officers to hire and start the program this fall.
The district still hopes to hire 13 more — including one to staff alternative campuses at Legacy High School and Phoenix High School — whose salaries would be paid with part of a recently passed operations and safety levy.
“I am pleased with the number of safety officers we have been able to initially recruit and hire to begin the program this fall,” Kennewick Superintendent Traci Pierce said in a provided statement.
“We have very high standards for the selection of these positions and the vetting process is extremely thorough. We want to ensure we have the most highly trained and qualified people filling these positions, and we are pleased that we do have retired police officers applying, as this was the vision for the position,” she added.
It’s unclear which five elementary schools will get the first officers.
The new $1 million in annual funding for those positions was tucked in the school district’s three-year, $72 million levy measure approved by 56% of voters during the Feb. 14 special election.
Of that funding, $255,000 will be used to train and add three school resource officers at Chinook, Desert Hills and Horse Heaven Hills middle schools.
The district currently has SROs at all its high schools and two who mostly cover Park and Highlands middle schools.
The district plans to add one this fall.
Those two other positions will be filled in January 2024 due to ongoing staffing issues at the Kennewick Police Department, which provides the officers and splits the salary costs with the school district.
Pierce says the district will work with the police department to decide soon which school among the three will get the first SRO.
New officer program
While both SROs and elementary safety officers will be trained by KPD, there are several differences between the two positions.
SROs are fully-commissioned police officers, whereas safety officers are not.
While they would be trained and held to the same policing standards, safety officers will only be employed by the school district.
Safety officers will not be able to make arrests, issue fines or file police reports. They will, however, be armed with a handgun while conducting work in elementary schools.
“Officers will complete training and orientation activities this summer, and we will continue to grow and build the program,” Pierce said.
The district began accepting applications for safety officers in March.
Pay is set at $22 an hour and officers will work 180 days per year. The job also includes health, dental, vision and other benefits.
The staff will be tasked with ensuring a safe environment on campus, monitoring school security systems and patrolling grounds, providing a response to any intrusions or incidents, and interacting with students, staff, families and visitors.
District leaders came up with the new concept of safety officers following the 2022 Robb Elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 children.
This story was originally published June 20, 2023 at 5:00 AM.
