For the coming school year, the School Resource Officer position in Mathews County Public Schools is being dissolved and the deputy returned to other duties in the community.
Sheriff April Edwards made that announcement during the public comment period during Tuesday night’s Mathews County School Board meeting, which was held in the Mathews High School media center.
Edwards, who served as SRO for Mathews County Schools herself from 2014-2016, provided an overview of the program and the litany of issues that her office has been having with the school division over the past few years that led to this decision.
Among the issues she mentioned were the schools scaling back student participation in the SROs TIDES (Teamwork In Drug Education and Safety) curriculum, a program that Edwards created in 2014. That program, designed to combat drug abuse, peer pressure, suicidal ideation and other social issues facing teens, had been taught by the School Resource Officer five days a week. This past ...