Representatives from Brenham ISD, the Brenham
City Council, Washington County Commissioners
and community members gathered at the
Washington County Expo Event Center on
Wednesday for a joint workshop to discuss Brenham
ISD's plans to create a police department. Officials from Brenham ISD, the City of Brenham and Washington County met for a workshop this (Wednesday) morning to begin discussions on how the school district’s plans for its own police department will take shape.

The workshop covered how the district will coordinate with partner agencies via interlocal agreements (ILAs) and memorandums of understanding (MOUs), its staffing goals, the training and pay of hired officers, costs involved with setting up and running the department, and the optimism of hitting the timeline of having everything in place by the start of the next school year.

Brenham ISD Superintendent Dr. Tylor Chaplin said moving forward with this process is one of the ways the school district looks to ensure school families and staff are protected and give them peace of mind.

Assistant Superintendent for Administrative Services Clay Gillentine called back to last summer when the city agreed to add a fifth school resource officer (SRO) at Brenham ISD campuses, which also allow off-duty officers to be paid to provide extra protection. He said while coverage at schools was strong to start off the school year, it has dropped off in the spring semester, and the school district was informed that the city would have to pull back one of the SROs due to its own police department staffing issues.

Gillentine said the school district met on Tuesday with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE), who told the district there have been 48 other school districts putting in applications for their own police departments within this past year alone. He said while things have been “fast and furious,” TCOLE feels good about Brenham ISD’s schedule. Dr. Chaplin added that TCOLE told the district that in terms of having officers ready to go in August, it is “well ahead of the game.”

Dr. Chaplin said when looking at the guarantee to make sure an officer is at each campus, offset with the amount paid to off-duty officers, the money is “almost equal” in going this new route.

According to Dr. Chaplin, the department would not work on a 24/7 schedule, as its focus would be during school operations and functions. The district is planning to have nine officers in total, including two at the high school and one at each of the other campuses, as well as a roaming chief and sergeant. He noted that the officers who are stationed to a particular campus will not be dispatched offsite during the school day, so in the event of a situation on campus that requires backup, that help would come in the form of a roaming officer or from supporting law enforcement from the city and county.

Gillentine said the district understands hiring officers is a struggle for other law enforcement agencies, but it feels confident in what it can offer as a school district police department. He said the salary being offered is comparable to what the city pays and believes that candidates will value having a work schedule based off of Brenham ISD school days and hours, with some additional responsibility for after-school events.

Speaking on obtaining needed equipment for the department, Dr. Chaplin said items like vehicles can be purchased at a low price through contacts with other school districts that are rolling off their old vehicles that are still in good shape and are fully equipped.

Also at the meeting to answer questions was Jeffrey Yarbrough, chief of the Hutto Police Department and a driving force behind the creation of school police departments for Bastrop and Round Rock ISDs. Yarbrough called it “a privilege” for Brenham ISD to be able to start a police department, as it knows the needs of its children and families better than anyone else. He said the district would not be getting the “runts of the litter” when recruiting officers, as school policing is a specialized area that requires the proper training and temperament.

John Deans, who led the implementation of the Guardian program in school districts like Burton, Bellville and Round Top-Carmine, allowing volunteer staff members to train to carry handguns on school grounds, encouraged Brenham ISD officials to reconsider the program or utilize the existing community of licensed-to-carry individuals. He said police officers are “burned out” and feels the district would have a difficult time hiring the officers it needs in four months, given the struggles of local law enforcement in doing the same.

Dr. Chaplin said over the course of establishing the police department, the necessary steps involve setting up MOUs for the city to sponsor Brenham ISD for the Brazos Valley Wide Area Communications System radio network; for the county to provide dispatch services and enter into a non-terminal agency agreement with them; and establish overlapping jurisdiction with the city, county and Blinn College.

The post BRENHAM ISD POLICE DEPT. DISCUSSED DURING JOINT WORKSHOP first appeared on KWHI.com.