ALEXANDER COUNTY, N.C. — Alexander County Schools welcomed two new school resource officers (SROs) in the new year after receiving a school safety grant.
The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction awarded the district $308,000 in a safety grant to help pay the salaries of the officers.
After the Uvalde, Texas school shooting in 2022, the North Carolina General Assembly increased the amount of grant money available to districts like Alexader County to strengthen school safety.
The Uvalde shooting also renewed Alexander County Schools Superintendent Jennifer Hefner's calls to increase funding for SROs. ,
"I said 'we have to do something if there are any funds available'. We're going to write grants, make requests, and do whatever we need to do because I want a resource officer, full-time officer, at every one of our campuses," Hefner said.
Once the grant money was awarded by the state, the Alexander County Commission agreed to pay a portion of the officers’ salaries.
Bethlehem Elementary and Ellendale Elementary will now have Alexander County Sheriff's Department deputies Trey Hefner and Buddy McKinney.
"I start the morning before students get here," McKinney said. "We help get students in the school [and] make sure the school is safe for them to have a fun day of learning."
McKinney said his relationship with the kids is refreshing because they're not afraid to ask bold questions.
"They're brutally honest with you that age, they just tell you what's on their mind," McKinney said.
Kids have asked him why he's there, why he has a gun, and what happens if a bad person comes to the school.
They've also enjoyed his warm personality.
“Kids come everywhere and hug me every morning. This has been the most rewarding job in my career," McKinney said.
Superintendent Hefner says the district can never let its guard down.
"We still have staff members talk about that situation and that happened in Texas and I think that every time that happens it’s a wake-up call for us because we’re a wonderful place to live and to work, [but] bad things happen everywhere," she said.
Alexander County Sheriff Chad Pennell, who started his career as an SRO, said the conversation around the safety of elementary schools has changed drastically in the last few years.
“We need to protect our kids. They need to be safe at school. They need to learn at school and this is just a part of it," Pennell said.
The sheriff’s office is actively working to fill the rest of the new positions, with some people in the pipeline to be hired hopefully before January ends.
"We're going to make sure that those officers are there every day that those doors are open, greeting those kids greeting the parents, and helping in whatever situation we can," Pennell said.
Hefner says the district continues to secure the schools beyond hiring SROs. They are working to get advanced privacy window tints to prevent people from looking inside school windows, along with advanced communications systems that will allow first responders immediate access to information in an emergency.
Contact Shamarria Morrison at smorrison@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.