Chagrin Falls Schools to add security officers at Gurney, Intermediate buildings

The Chagrin Falls School district would like to hire permanent security officers for Gurney Elementary School and Chagrin Falls Intermediate School to assist current school resource officer Mike Baldwin. (Matt Leavitt, special to cleveland.com)

CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio -- At the Aug. 16 Chagrin Falls Board of Education meeting, Chagrin Falls Schools Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Penczarski laid out her plan to add school resource officers at Gurney Elementary School and Chagrin Falls Intermediate School.

Currently, Chagrin Falls police officer Mike Baldwin is the district’s lone school resource officer, working out of the high school.

At the moment, the school district is in the planning stages with the Chagrin Falls Police Department (Intermediate School) and the Village of South Russell (Gurney Elementary) to provide full-time police officers at both campuses.

The police departments would hire and train the school resource officers, while the school district would pay the officers and be responsible for providing their benefits.

During the next couple of months, the school board and respective police departments will draft a detailed agreement defining the scope and responsibilities of the school resource officers.

Once the Chagrin Falls Board of Education and both village councils sanction the agreement and the new positions, the police departments will start the hiring and training process.

Penczarski also discussed other security options for the two school buildings.

The superintendent stated that hiring just one school resource officer would be a more economical option than hiring two such officers, because the school district has to provide police equipment and a patrol car for each officer.

Pencazrski noted that another option -- hiring a part-time school security officer -- would be less than optimal due to the fact that the position would not offer benefits or health care for that particular employee.

While the school board considers permanent security options for Gurney Elementary and the Intermediate School, local police officers will offer security coverage for both schools.