Indian Lake Schools will have a new staff member dedicated to security starting this school year.
The Indian Lake Board of Education voted during their regular July board meeting to contract with the Washington Township Police Department for a School Resource Officer.
Superintendent Rob Underwood explains that the Washington Township Police Department has worked to serve and protect Indian Lake students and staff for years and this agreement will bolster their presence with an officer always on campus during school hours.
“As things have started to change in our society and, quite frankly, across the US we just saw a need for more support here on campus.” Underwood explained. “We’ve found an excellent candidate to fill that role and he’s currently in School Resource Officer Training.”
Washington Township Police Chief Rick Core says Officer Logan Miller will be the SRO. He comes to Indian Lake Schools from the Allen County Fraud Investigation Unit and before that, the Russells Point Police Department. SRO Miller will spend most of the year working for Indian Lake Schools, then serve as an additional officer for the Washington Township Police Department to help cover the busy summer time in the Indian Lake area. The contract will be a 71-29 split between Indian Lake Schools and Washington Township.
The board also discussed re-instituting an armed response team, consisting of select volunteer school employees, as allowed under Ohio House Bill 99 which passed earlier this summer. In 2018, the Board of Education approved the armed response team as part of its Emergency Response Plan, which is considered a security record. At the time, the law did not require the armed response portion of the plan to be released to the public, however the plan was approved in an open board meeting. With the support of the Logan County Sheriff and Russells Point Police Department and in collaboration with the Washington Township Police Department, the district established a rigorous armed response program that exceeded industry standards for both the selection and training of team members. The IL armed response team was suspended in the fall of 2021 due to an Ohio Supreme Court decision effectively requiring that any armed school employee complete more than 700 hours of peace officer training. The recent passage of House Bill 99 re-established a school’s authority to arm staff. The new law requires the Board to inform the public of this decision, although the names of armed individuals are to remain anonymous. Additionally, each armed response team member must volunteer, be approved by the Board, pass annual background checks, and complete 24 initial hours of training with 8 hours of annual recertification through a state approved program. The Ohio School Safety and Crisis Center is currently finalizing the armed response team training programs. The Indian Lake Board will officially consider this fall whether to re-institute the team.
In other news, board members voted to hire Yazmyn Inskeep as the Girls Varsity Basketball Coach, accept updated Central Buckeye Conference athletic admission prices and set lunch and breakfast prices as follows for the 2022-23 school year:
Breakfast Lunch
Elementary $1.50 $2.50
Middle School $1.50 $2.75
High School $2.00 $3.25
Adult $2.50 $4.25
Finally, after a quiet public hearing earlier in the evening, the board voted to move 1.5 mills of the district’s inside millage to a permanent improvement fund, allowing the district to address facilities needs in the future. Underwood explains that this is an opportune time to make the adjustment as the district is retiring a bond and more than half the districts in the state have already chosen to make the same inside millage move.
The Indian Lake Board of Education will meet again at 5 pm on Monday, August 15th, ahead of the district's Open House Night.