Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates set to renew school resource officer agreements with District 54

Schaumburg and Hoffman Estates officials are poised to renew three-year agreements providing school resource officers from their police departments to buildings in Schaumburg Township Elementary District 54.

As before, Hoffman Estates will provide one officer at Eisenhower Junior High and Schaumburg will provide two to cover the three junior high schools in Schaumburg.

While visits to each village's elementary schools are also part of the officers' responsibilities, the majority of time is spent among older students, District 54 Executive Director of Community Relations Terri McHugh said.

"We're happy with the work of the SROs," she added. "We have a say in who comes to work in the schools."

The pending agreements make no change in the financial arrangements of the last ones, with the school district paying 75% of the officers' salaries. During the summer months, the officers' duties return to normal within their departments.

Their responsibilities during the school year include teaching such law enforcement topics as internet safety, drug and gang resistance, and stranger danger. They are also expected to interact with students as positive role models, develop strategies and establish working relationships with behaviorally at-risk students, assist with truancy and residency issues at each school, maintain a high level of visibility and meet with building administrators on security issues.

District 54 also has an agreement with Elk Grove Village for a school resource officer at Mead Junior High.

Although there are no District 54 junior highs in Roselle or Hanover Park, those villages' police departments also provide officers for equivalent services at elementary schools as the official student resource officers do during visits to the elementary schools in Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates and Elk Grove Village, McHugh said.

Schaumburg's public safety committee is scheduled to review today the village's pending agreement to provide the two officers for three junior highs and nine elementary schools through the summer of 2024.