Is a School Resource Officer in Texas armed or unarmed?
They would be armed like regular Cops.
The Uvalde Independent School District website doesn’t appear to be up right now but a quick Google it looks like one high school, two middle schools and five elementary schools, 15,000 people living in the town. Schools in Texas are funded largely by property taxes, dunno what additional State and Federal aid a poor place like Uvalde gets.
Even here in San Antonio, School Cops start out earningsignificantly less than teachers.
I believe the more dynamic ones are assigned to the High Schools, most of what they do at the high school level is break up fights and take those kids to the office, arrest a few kids every year in possession of drugs, an once in a while catch a kid on campus with a handgun, on themselves or in a vehicle.
A good SRO (and I’ve seen a few),can be an invaluable asset to the school. For many kids they are their first point of contact between themselves and the legal system. For example most weapons busts are from reports by other students, the potential for school Cops to detect abuse cases is big too if the kids confide in them.
There are so few SROs relative to the teaching staff, increasing their salaries to meet or exceed teacher salaries would be a minor addition to a district budget. I’d like to see them get serious Cop pay.
Imagine a situation where the best and brightest wanted to be School Cops.
