Image Credit: Memphis Shelby County Schools
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
School Resource Officers (SROs) for Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) are on strike, demanding higher pay, stronger recruitment, and increased officer safety.
SROs are refusing to come to work and are insisting that their demands be met before they continue to staff campuses during the school day and for extracurricular activities such as football games.
In a letter to the district, SROs addressed a number of concerns, especially with the safety of officers. They also detailed a plan to not report for work on Friday, August 16.
This is especially concerning for district officials because this means there would not be SROs working for the upcoming football Jamboree, an event that has seen violence over the last few years.
Captain Bennie Cobb owns Eagle Eye Security and Training and works with officers as they are trained for the job.
“Short of an SRO being there, there’s no telling what can happen,” Cobb said.
Cobb also addressed the need for an increase in pay for officers.
“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,” Cobb stated.
Reverend Althea Greene, who serves as the Chair of the Shelby County Board of Education, believes that they can reach an agreement with officers by their proposed deadline.
“First of all, we need to listen and talk with those officers,” Greene said. “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.”
Greene plans to meet with MSCS Superintendent Dr. Marie Feagins to work on a plan to work out an arrangement to meet the officers’ demands.
