When students return to classes in less than two weeks, there will be no school resource officers on campuses.
The Press Democrat reports city and school district officials say they cannot afford the program, which costs nearly two million dollars annually, as both organizations grapple with multi-million dollar budget deficits. Instead, the Santa Rosa Police Department will have beat officers patrolling near schools, and the district is implementing new civilian safety teams on secondary campuses to handle student incidents.
Officials say they will continue to look for outside funding to eventually reinstate the school resource officer program.
