Sheriff talks cops on campus; Deputy for Era school campus possible

Mike Eads, Gainesville Daily Register, Texas
·2 min read

Jun. 10—Cooke County Sheriff Ray Sappington is negotiating with Era Independent School District to put one of his deputies on the Era High School campus next year.

Sappington told the Register this week that the agreement has yet to be approved by the Era ISD board or the Cooke County Commissioners Court. The school district would pay 70 percent of the cost for the School Resource Officer (SRO), who would cover the 2022-23 school year, and he would pay the remaining 30 percent and deploy that office countywide when school isn't in session.

"I spent 15 years on the school board at Valley View ... while I was on the board, we had created an SRO with city of Valley View Police Department," said Sappington, the retired state trooper who was sworn in as Sheriff in 2021.

Many of the county's school districts are located within towns with police departments, but Era and Callisburg do not maintain local police departments. Sappington and Callisburg ISD added an SRO for the 2021-22 school year.

"(The Callisburg ISD) board there and their superintendent [Donald] Metzler was, uh, very much for it ... and, by all accounts, it has been very successful. I've heard nothing but great things and compliments about the program up there as we finished the first year," said Sappington.

The sheriff pointed out the importance of having an officer on site to respond immediately to a tragedy like the Uvalde school shootings, but he said the benefits extend well beyond that.

"You might have parents who come to the school have a disagreement with the school, — maybe their child has has had some kind of discipline situation at school and they don't agree with whatever. Parents get crossways with teachers and principals and, quite often, some of those situations can be heated. When you have an SRO on site, they, they tend to deescalate that," Sappington noted.

"... Another thing that is our goal is not only to be out there to provide a law enforcement presence, but to be a mentor with those kids, to get to know those kids," the sheriff continued. "That's what we've been successful with at Callisburg — building those relationships, where the kids trust the officer, the officer knows the kids, and it is really a neat thing to watch. It's much more than being a police officer on campus. Now, God forbid, that an active shooter situation does occur: absolutely that SRO is maybe the difference between life and death."