A large school district in New Jersey has approved to enhance student protection by hiring off-duty police and then retired officers to patrol inside school buildings. The guards will be armed and present through at least the end of the 2022-2023 academic year.
The latest to approve the policy was the board of education of the Middletown School District, NJ.com reported. The measure was unanimously passed last week in the wake of a mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas that killed 21 people, including 19 children.
In a letter of intent (pdf), approved measures have been detailed. It outlined that an off-duty police officer will be placed at each of the district’s 16 schools through the end of the 2021-2022 school year. The assigned officers will carry guns and will be paid “at a rate of $50 per hour.”…