Let teachers teach and officers police
By Wayne R. Phlegar Jr.
I come from a unique position of having served the last 25 years of my 34-year law enforcement career on a school district police department in a suburb of Houston, Texas.
In the early 1980s, several school district police/security departments came together and formed the Texas Association of School District Police. An officer from the San Antonio school district police and I wrote a law and changed others to enable us to become recognized police officers and not school security. This change required us to meet the standards of the Texas Commission of Law Enforcement Standards and Education. All the standards set for the likes of the Houston Police Department now applied to us, but the law also added courses on the handling of juveniles and special needs students.
 Phlegar is a retired Texas master police officer and psychologist living in west Roanoke County.
January 16, 2013 - 6:18 AM
Dr. Phlegar, thank you for an interesting essay based on your experiences in law enforcement. All of that training and policing in our schools sounds very professional but also quite expensive. I wonder how it will be paid for. I would be happy to see my Virginia income tax raised by 1% for the sole purpose of helping to secure our schools (that is, from 5.75% to 6.75%). I would be happy to see it raised again to 7.75% for the purpose of hiring more teachers, reducing class sizes, and introducing the kinds of counseling and other student services that we need to deal with unstable students in our schools. Do you think the delegate representing Roanoke County, where you live, would support such tax increases? I’m not sure Del. Yost, who is the delegate where I live, would go for that.
Very good piece. Too bad the focus of the moment seems to only be about getting rid of evil black rifles.
I think this was very well written and makes a lot of sense. I say to all cities and school districts we should try this route and enlist the men and women of our military as school police officers. They are getting the shaft enough as it is.
Look at walmart. They have promised to hire 100000 in the next few years.
Military has priorty employment at walmart. We need to make the same promise when it comes to jobs with local, state and fed.