 EVSC Superintendent Needs To Pay Part-Time Safety Officers A Reasonable WageÂ
School safety has become a serious situation that requires law enforcement officers to be embedded in our schools to assure that the students, teachers, and staff are safe from violent actions as they carry out their daily duties.
This is a situation that was not heightened until the turn of the century. Perhaps the shootings at Columbine High School in Aurora, Colorado were the inflection point where fear found a home in public education. We are a long way from the days when spit wads on the blackboard, smoking in the boy’s room, and an occasional fistfight on the playground are the most destructive things that happen at school. In those days the principal and most teachers were authorized to use a paddle to keep order in school and the paddles, for the most part, worked to whack the mischief out of the students. Paddles do not stop bullets. Paddles also do little in the hands of a typical teacher to stop a violent student who weighs in excess of 200 pounds. Thus today, we as a society find ourselves in a nation where law enforcement officers are needed to maintain order at school. This sad situation means that money that could have been spent on education must be spent on safety.
Recently the  Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) and the Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation have publicly aired a grievance over the cost of police protection in the public schools. EVSC Superintendent Dr. David Smith, who reportedly earns a compensation package of over $300,000 per year.  He’s on record that an additional $2.50 per hour pay increase over the amount recently approved by the school is excessive.  We feel that what these officers are paid is every bit as necessary to the educational process as the highly paid superintendent is.
Adjust the budget next year, possibly do away with one of his many administrators that he has created of the years. Or just possibly take a pay cut!!
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