MEMPHIS, TN - School Resource Officers (SROs) with the Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) were threatening to strike over many issues including officer safety and pay raises, among others, before a deal was struck Wednesday.
On Friday, August 9th, FOX13 obtained a letter that was sent to the SROs instructing them to call out later in the week unless changes are made to their jobs. Without the requested changes, the SROs were threatening to not report for duty this coming Friday, August 16th. The letter also encouraged the SROs to not work security at the district's football jamborees, which are scheduled for Thursday and Friday nights throughout the fall.
According to ABC24, some SROs have said that while they won't return to work, they will participate in a football jamboree if those demands are met. The letter reportedly urged SROs to use their "We Care" Day on their pay stubs and laid out specific demands, including: officer safety, pay scale, hiring more officers, and police violations. The letter does not specifically state what those violations are.
Wednesday, the district agreed to a pay increase to $25 per hour (a $2 per hour raise). In terms of the other demands, Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins said it will take time to bring those to fruition.
Captain Bennie Cobb, owner of Eagle Eye Security and Training said, "You have not only the football games that are coming up, but you have kids going to these schools, and short of an SRO being there, there's no telling what can happen. We know that law enforcement cannot cover all these schools." The jamborees are annual multi-team football scrimmages that have led to violence in the past.
In 2023, gunshots fired outside Cordova High School led to criminal charges against and adult and three juveniles. In 2022, at Central High School, a fight led to a panic when someone claimed there was a gun. According to the MSCS website, the district employees 128 SROs to help "break up fights, keep weapons out of schools, and secure the hallways."
Reverend Althea Greene, the Shelby County Board of Education Chair, said that the officers' concerns are reasonable. Greene wants the SROs to know that the school administration understands their strain in protecting all the students on a daily basis and that everyone should recognize how much they contribute to the school environment.
She said in a statement, "First of all, we need to listen and talk with those officers. They are so crucial, so important to the work that we do. We need to listen to them. We need to respectfully, if there are things that they have asked for, if there's pay that they were supposed to get, then we need to honor those commitments."
Cobb provides the training to the SROs and said that the letter likely stems from a much larger issue. He said, "This seems to me that the system is going in reverse to what everybody else is doing. I think one of the biggest issues that they have is parenting pay, where the overtime is being cut or eliminated. You have to have overtime. Every staff member is showing that every law enforcement entity is paying millions and millions of dollars in overtime to supplement the manpower."
Greene believes that a decision that will satisfy all parties can be made by Wednesday, August 14th, the deadline that was provided in the letter. She said, "You don't want to wait until Thursday. You want to make sure that first thing Monday morning, hopefully over the weekend, this is a priority for the district. They've listed concerns, you know, safety, pay scale, hire more officers, pay, revise policy violations. They're all serious demands. They are asking for our attention and for us to address these concerns."
Cobb said that if a solution is not reached and this escalates into a more significant strike, local law enforcement will have to step in and fill the void. A letter from Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins dated Monday, August 12th, reportedly lays out a new salary schedule for the district SROs. The letter, which was obtained by FOX13, states that officers will be paid more than $52,000 with a one dollar per hour increase each year for up to five years and new sergeants will get close to $71,000.
On Friday, August 9th, FOX13 obtained a letter that was sent to the SROs instructing them to call out later in the week unless changes are made to their jobs. Without the requested changes, the SROs were threatening to not report for duty this coming Friday, August 16th. The letter also encouraged the SROs to not work security at the district's football jamborees, which are scheduled for Thursday and Friday nights throughout the fall.
According to ABC24, some SROs have said that while they won't return to work, they will participate in a football jamboree if those demands are met. The letter reportedly urged SROs to use their "We Care" Day on their pay stubs and laid out specific demands, including: officer safety, pay scale, hiring more officers, and police violations. The letter does not specifically state what those violations are.
Wednesday, the district agreed to a pay increase to $25 per hour (a $2 per hour raise). In terms of the other demands, Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins said it will take time to bring those to fruition.
Captain Bennie Cobb, owner of Eagle Eye Security and Training said, "You have not only the football games that are coming up, but you have kids going to these schools, and short of an SRO being there, there's no telling what can happen. We know that law enforcement cannot cover all these schools." The jamborees are annual multi-team football scrimmages that have led to violence in the past.
In 2023, gunshots fired outside Cordova High School led to criminal charges against and adult and three juveniles. In 2022, at Central High School, a fight led to a panic when someone claimed there was a gun. According to the MSCS website, the district employees 128 SROs to help "break up fights, keep weapons out of schools, and secure the hallways."
Reverend Althea Greene, the Shelby County Board of Education Chair, said that the officers' concerns are reasonable. Greene wants the SROs to know that the school administration understands their strain in protecting all the students on a daily basis and that everyone should recognize how much they contribute to the school environment.
She said in a statement, "First of all, we need to listen and talk with those officers. They are so crucial, so important to the work that we do. We need to listen to them. We need to respectfully, if there are things that they have asked for, if there's pay that they were supposed to get, then we need to honor those commitments."
Cobb provides the training to the SROs and said that the letter likely stems from a much larger issue. He said, "This seems to me that the system is going in reverse to what everybody else is doing. I think one of the biggest issues that they have is parenting pay, where the overtime is being cut or eliminated. You have to have overtime. Every staff member is showing that every law enforcement entity is paying millions and millions of dollars in overtime to supplement the manpower."
Greene believes that a decision that will satisfy all parties can be made by Wednesday, August 14th, the deadline that was provided in the letter. She said, "You don't want to wait until Thursday. You want to make sure that first thing Monday morning, hopefully over the weekend, this is a priority for the district. They've listed concerns, you know, safety, pay scale, hire more officers, pay, revise policy violations. They're all serious demands. They are asking for our attention and for us to address these concerns."
Cobb said that if a solution is not reached and this escalates into a more significant strike, local law enforcement will have to step in and fill the void. A letter from Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins dated Monday, August 12th, reportedly lays out a new salary schedule for the district SROs. The letter, which was obtained by FOX13, states that officers will be paid more than $52,000 with a one dollar per hour increase each year for up to five years and new sergeants will get close to $71,000.
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Comments
2024-08-17T10:00-0400 | Comment by: Raconteur
Training and arming the staff and teachers is working in every school where it is used, with 0, zero, nada, none, zip, incidents involving the guns of the staff and teachers. So, why don't they all do it? Because they claim that a person who can you entrust your child's life and mind to, is too incompetent or stupid to learn armed defense of those children.