At the December 11th Bishop School Board meeting, an item was discussed and then voted on regarding a new Rotating School Resource Officer (SRO) Program for the Spring Session. The City of Bishop Chief of Police, Nate Derr, and the Superintendent of BUSD, Katie Kolker worked collaboratively to come up with a plan to cover the vacant SRO position in the Bishop School District.

This pilot program will run from January 8, 2024, through June 7, 2024, and will be funded by three organizations. The City of Bishop will provide $10,000, the District will provide $10,000 and the Inyo County Board of Education will provide $10,000 for a total of $30,000 for the six months. The City of Bishop will offer their current Sworn staff the opportunity to earn Overtime hours while providing the SRO services to multiple Bishop campuses. All officers can sign up for different days or shifts. The hope is that up to five days a week would be able to be covered, however, it is understood that this may not happen.

During public comment, two people spoke in favor of the program. One, a parent, stated that having an SRO on campus fostered better relationships between youth and law enforcement while enhancing school safety and had hopes that a mentoring program would also be implemented. The second commenter stated that it was unfortunate that this was the world we live in and it would be better to have an SRO on each campus but she was happy that at least this was occurring.

Chief Derr also attended the meeting and stated that he was pleased with the agreement and looked forward to a more comprehensive program for the next school year and hoped that there would be a full-time position in the future. There is also the hope that additional long-term funding could be found for future SRO positions.

The Board members all spoke in favor of the program and seemed pleased that an agreement had come forward. They voted 5-0 – all in favor of the program.