Schools Beef Up Security West Valley District Gets Full-Time Deputy

A green and white sheriff’s cruiser joined student and staff cars in the crowded West Valley High School parking lot on the first day of school.

It appears that car will be there all year.

West Valley School District plans to contract with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department to retain a full-time deputy at the high school for security. Another deputy will work part time, rotating between the district’s two alternative education programs.

The deputies probably will be armed, although a final decision has not been made by the school board.

”(The community) wants to see … someone who can get into a sheriff’s car and chase a suspect. They don’t want a security guard who runs down the halls and dials 911,” WV school board member Pete Schweda said.

Because of staff shortages, sheriff’s deputies will not be available to West Valley before October. After that, an arrangement most likely will be worked out, said Sheriff John Goldman.

“Within our ability to staff that, we can gear up for that,” Goldman said. “I’m sure we can come to some common ground.” But Goldman wants to be sure that deputies would be preventing crime at the schools, not enforcing school discipline.

All three Valley school districts decided this year to employ security personnel for their high schools. West Valley held a community meeting Aug. 30 to seek comment on what the security guard’s role should be.

By the start of school, one “school resource officer” was on board at East Valley High School, with plans in place to hire another. Sheriff’s deputy Doug Lawson filled in temporarily at West Valley High School. Two positions were advertised by Central Valley School District - one for each of the district’s two high schools.

On Thursday, Lawson, a beefy deputy sporting a flattop haircut, strode through the halls of WVHS. He’s worked there for more than a year as a school resource officer and knows many of the students. Some students shyly said hello, but, said Lawson, “Most of them ignore me.”

At first many WVHS students opposed the idea of having a security guard. But a recent poll of the school’s students showed 59 percent want the security person to be in uniform.

At East Valley High, resource officer Shelagh Tilton is on the job. The district wanted to hire one man and one woman, said Superintendent Chuck Stocker, “so kids can relate to each.”

Tilton, who has three children in East Valley schools, also was offered a security job with Spokane School District 81, which also has beefed up security this year. Tilton took the job with East Valley to be closer to her children, despite earning $3 per hour less at EVHS.

“The opportunity to be where my kids are and to know what’s going on in their schools - that’s invaluable,” Tilton said.

Tilton, a muscular 6-footer with warm eyes and a friendly smile, comes to the district with considerable experience. She spent four years with Kamiakin High School in Kennewick as a security officer and 10 years in retail security.

The East Valley students are adopting a “wait and see attitude,” Tilton said.

“It’ll be a matter of time for them to get to know me and me to get to know them.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo