RUMFORD — Superintendent Deb Alden said Monday she is meeting with a representative of the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday because he might have a resource officer lined up for Buckfield Junior-Senior High School.
If a resource officer is hired for the school, he or she would be hired from the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office while a resource officer for Mountain Valley High School would be hired through the Rumford Police Department, Alden said at Monday night’s meeting of the Regional School Unit 10 board of directors.
The Rumford Police Department is applying for a grant to help support the costs of a resource officer at the high school, and RSU 10’s share of the cost would likely be “$5,000 one year, $10,000 another, $20,000, and going up,” she said.
At Buckfield High School, the payment for the RSU would be different, with the district paying “something like three-quarters and (the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office) paying a quarter (of the cost),” she said.
Mountain Valley High School Principal Matt Gilbert said the resource officer position at the school “has a lot of different purposes.”
“We will be using a resource officer to help us with home visits,” he said, “but the biggest piece is it’s another adult trained in a specific way to build relationships with kids, help assess risks and create safer environments and make a building more secure.”
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George Reuter, principal of Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, speaks Monday night at the Regional School Unit 10 board of director’s meeting. (Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times)
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