WASHINGTON — Prince William County Public Schools may become the first school system to take advantage of a law passed in Virginia last year allowing schools to hire retired police officers to serve as armed school security guards.
County Police Chief Barry Barnard has recommended that five officers and a supervisor be hired for a pilot program that could be expanded down the road.
“My thought … is to have them be available to assist at multiple elementary schools,” Barnard told the Board of Supervisors at this week’s meeting.
The retired officers would work for the school system, not the police.
The district already has armed school resource officers, who are employees of the police department, assigned to every middle and high school.
Barnard said the cost of those six new positions would be $464,000 for the first year.
“You might want to just fund this for the first year at $500,000, and that would provide some flexibility in the training hours, to formalize a training program, and to formalize perhaps some additional equipment that we may think in working with the schools might be helpful to have for this program.” the chief said.
Bernard said hiring six additional school resource officers would cost about twice as much as hiring the retired officers.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
