"Student safety is very important to NREVSD and the BOE's action to hire an off-duty police officer is an important step," said Supt. Adam Bird. "He (Bock) will be in every building every week, and he will be ready to respond to any building during an emergency."
Bock is a 2003 graduate of New Richmond High School. The contract with the village is for the rest of this school year only at an hourly
rate of $22.85."He will be in a different building every day on a schedule unknown to the public," Bird told the school board. "My hope and prayer is that just knowing that a we have a police officer somewhere in the district will cause somebody who is looking for a soft target to choose somewhere else."
School board president Kevin Walriven noted that concern over response times in case of an emergency led to the decision to contract for an armed officer.
"I could not be assured that a police officer could respond within 5 minutes and anything above that would be unacceptable," Bird told board members. "If there is an active shooter incident and our building goes into a lockdown, teachers and students are completely dependent on the calvary arriving in time. This gives us the opportunity to have a police officer who can respond in a timely manner."
The village will provide Bock with a village police cruiser. Bock will be allowed to leave his school duty location if there is an emergency in the village. The village will not bill the district for Bock's time if he has to leave to respond to an emergency.
Bird said the district will reappraise the situation at the end of the school year and decide on moving forward with additional protection for next school year.
"We want to provide our students with the safest situation possible," said Bird.
