The Mehlville Board of Education unanimously approved a contract June 6 between the St. Louis County Police Department and the school district for school resource officers.

Seven officers will be assigned to the school district, serving as SROs, providing various services such as patrolling school grounds and assisting with security issues. The county will also supply five marked patrol vehicles for use by the officers. 

The SROs will be present in Mehlville schools during the school week, Monday through Friday, for eight hours a day during the school year.

The district will pay $50,126.16 a month during the initial term to cover the officers’ salaries and use of patrol vehicles, for a total of $601,513.95 for the one-year term.

According to the agreement, the contract will begin July 1 and run through June 30, 2025, with two automatic one-year renewals, meaning it could extend through June 30, 2027. 

The contract was part of the board’s consent agenda but was pulled by Director Scott Huegerich for more discussion. 

“I personally know other people in the community were a little shaken about the gun violence that happened by some of our students off campus – had nothing to do with the district … and it was also somewhat unsettling that there were threats made to our graduation ceremony,” Huegerich said, referring to the February shooting in Oakville involving two students in the district, as well as the recent threat against Oakville’s graduation ceremony that stemmed from the February shooting. 

Huegerich asked if there was any value in possibly reexamining the district’s overall safety and security plan, suggesting either an internal or external audit. 

“The way I look at the SRO contract is it’s … one component of our overall safety and security plan,” Huegerich said. “Is there any rationale for slightly reexamining the overall … plan that we have? … I just think it’s diligent discussion to talk about this … to make sure we’re all good with things, given what we’ve gone through this semester.” 

Board President Peggy Hassler pointed out that safety was outlined in the district’s strategic plan, and that some security situations were purposefully not discussed “because we don’t want to give … ideas to bad people.”

Huegerich countered that he didn’t quite understand the rationale of only seven SROs with five cars.

“I’m deciding if seven SROs is the right number. I can’t tell you that I can make that decision … I believe they (the community) would really want us to go through things with a fine tooth comb, maybe examine things a little bit more than normal this year just based off of what we went through,” Huegerich said.

Superintendent Jeff Haug said that a security audit was certainly possible, but that it would need to be made public, meaning some elements of the district’s security and safety plans would be available for anyone.

“Whether that is our twice-a-year walk with our school, or our checklist to see what’s out there,” Haug said. “Maybe we don’t make the checklist public, but we let you guys know what we do and how we do it … We have all these processes in place that I want to make you guys aware of that we do … I don’t have any problem with doing that. There’s a lot of things that are done … all of those things we do to make sure that our buildings are safe, we can report on at the beginning of the year or end of the year, or do it with the strategic plan.”

Hassler suggested approving the contract as presented with the caveat that Haug and other Mehlville administrative staff would continue to audit the district’s security and present it “in a more comprehensive way, so that everyone understands we are doing the 100%, the 110%,” Hassler said.