Several concerned citizens, local educators and administrators, law enforcement officers and elected officials gathered at the Cherokee County Courthouse on Tuesday as part of School Safety Committee meetings hosted by the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office over the last couple of months.

During Tuesday’s meeting, Cherokee County EMA Director Shawn Rogers spoke briefly about the importance of having resource officers in the school system and what role EMA plays–

Rogers said that in the future, he will be meeting with faculty, staff and administrations at each school to work out a high quality school emergency operations plan based on the guide provided by FEMA.

For quite some time now there have been numerous discussions about the possibility of placing school resource officers in each of the schools across Cherokee County. However, with new positions comes the issue of funding.

The main question more recently has been who will fund these positions, the sheriff’s office, the board of education or both. During Tuesday evenings meeting, Cherokee County Sheriff Jeff Shaver stated that he has already purchased the necessary vehicles needed for school resource officers and has also received a grant commitment of $30,000 – $32,000 from State Senator Phil Williams.

Cherokee County Commissioner Randy Jones was in attendance at the meeting and had this to say –

At this time there has been no official decision made by the Cherokee County Board of Education. We will continue to follow this story and provide updates as new information is available.