4 School Resource Officer Positions Added To Sheriff's Office

HARFORD COUNTY, MD ? Four new school resource office positions have been added to the Harford County Sheriff's Office School Policing Unit.

As a result of recruiting challenges and manpower shortages, the city of Aberdeen Police Department cannot continue to fill SRO positions at Aberdeen High and Aberdeen Middle School for the 2023 ? 2024 school year. Starting in January 2024, the Harford County Sheriff?s Office School Policing Unit will provide deputies at each of these schools.

In the past 10 years, Harford County's SRO Program has expanded from not only providing SROs in the high schools to covering all Harford County middle schools and providing roving coverage of public elementary schools outside of the three municipal areas. With the addition of the four new positions that the county has pledged to fund, the School Policing Unit will continue to build on the 10 personnel protecting schools a few years ago to an operational strength of 25 sworn deputies.

?With soft-on-crime policies from our state and national leaders, violent crime continues to be unnecessarily out of control in so many places. As your sheriff, I will do what is necessary to keep our community safe and nothing is more important than keeping our children safe in school. Together with the leadership of Dr. Sean Bulson and Harford County Public Schools, we will make our schools a safe place for our children to grow and learn,? said Harford County Sheriff Jeffrey Gahler.

The HCSO is currently accepting applications for lateral law enforcement officers to meet this need. If interested, apply online at www.harfordsheriff.org.