The Westmoreland Central School District continues to address school safety in a proactive fashion.
On September 10, Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente announced that the Westmoreland Central School District is one of five new school districts to utilize $500,000 in county funding to hire Special Patrol Officers (SPOs) for the 2018-19 school year. The announcement was made at Whitesboro Middle School. Whitesboro was the first school district to hire SPOs in 2016, serving as a model for the rest of the county.
“When I first announced that I wanted to make this funding available in April, I did so because I wanted action,” Picente said. “As I watched the seemingly never-ending news stream of school shootings and violence inflicting pain, loss and fear on our nation’s children, parents and educators, I knew we had to act where others were not.”
Currently, there are four SPOs assigned to the Westmoreland Central School District - - two at the Primary Elementary School and two at the Upper Elementary School. Their shifts rotate so there is one officer in each building during the school day. Another 24 SPOs are located in the Camden, New York Mills, Sauquoit Valley, Waterville and Whitesboro school districts. All are part-time officers employed by the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office. The $500,000 in funding allocated by Oneida County matches fifty-percent of the cost incurred by each school district.
The Westmoreland Central School District also has a School Resource Officer dedicated to the entire district through the Sheriff’s Office. This arrangement was already in place.
“The Westmoreland Central School District is fortunate to have worked with the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office for almost 20 years,” Westmoreland Central School District Superintendent of Schools Rocco Migliori said. “We hired our first School Resource Officer (SRO) for the 1999-2000 school year, and have had the full-time presence of a sheriff’s deputy in our district ever since. The SRO has district-wide responsibilities and travels to all three of our school buildings. The $500,000 pledged by Oneida County Executive Picente now allows us to have a security presence in each of our school buildings simultaneously.”
“We thank the County Executive and Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol for their support and partnership in making this possible. Maintaining safe school campuses is a community-wide responsibility, and we commend both for recognizing this and creating a plan to help,” Migliori added.
The Westmoreland Central School District intends to present a capital project to district voters this November. A main focal point of the proposed project is further enhancing school safety and addressing critical infrastructure needs.
Please refer to the Westmoreland Central School District website for additional information and updates regarding the proposed capital project in the near future.