Construction is underway and Mason County Schools Superintendent Rick Ross hopes the district’s two police substations are ready when fall rolls around.
The board of education agreed last year to add the substations on campus to give police more access to the district’s facilities around the clock. At the time, Superintendent Rick Ross said the district was working in collaboration with several local businesses to build the stations at the STEAM Academy and at a second location, later determined to be the bus garage.
The station at the bus garage has been framed in and is awaiting interior work, Ross said. The room at the STEAM academy is essentially ready, but he said he wants both substations to open simultaneously.
Ross said he has been talking with Mason County Sheriff Patrick Boggs whose office provides a resource officer for the district, and in the past has discussed the plan with Maysville Police Chief Ron Rice.
“We are going to encourage police officers to be there,” Ross said.
The substations will provide a location for officers to monitor school activities and to perhaps complete paper work or other duties, Ross said.
The stations will also be equipped with feeds from school video cameras that officers can monitor when they are in-house and will be linked in to the districts announcement system which will provide both vocal and message alerts for weather or other incidents, Ross said.
The buildings, Rice said earlier, will be “an added set of eyes and added presence” at the schools, an important mission concerning the recent spat of school shootings across the nation.
Rice said he does not have the funding to place an officer on campus full time, but said “the Maysville Police Department will participate at every opportunity,” he said.
Ross suggested that the presence of police at the school will be a deterrent to unlawful activities at any hour.
Both Rice and Boggs said keeping schools safe is a priority and having a spot for police on campus is a plus in that effort.
Ross said, in an effort to further improve security, a glass barrier will also be added to separate the office area from open areas at the middle school.
