In an agreement approved this month, the City of Dickson will be adding two School Resource Officers for the 2025-2026 school year.
The Dickson City Council unanimously approved a revised Memorandum of Understanding with the Dickson County School Board at its July 7, 2025, regular session.
In the new MOU, the Dickson Police Department will provide 10 trained SROs and a sergeant/detective to serve in the six Dickson County public schools located within the city. The two SROs being added for the new year were requested by Director of Schools Dr. Christie Southerland to be assigned at Dickson County High School and Dickson Middle School, two of the largest schools in the county.
In presenting the resolution to adopt the MOU, City Administrator David Travis said in addition to increasing the number of officers, the city is no longer asking the school system to reimburse a portion of the salaries and benefits of the officers.
Under previous agreements, the school system reimbursed the city for the equivalent of 185 days of salary and benefits for as many as five SROs. Following The Covenant School shooting, the Tennessee General Assembly created a school safety grant program that funded six of the city’s SROs and the school system reimbursed the city for two SROs in 2024-2025.
“The major difference you’ll see here is the City is fully funding these officers. In the past the school board had reimbursed us for part of those,” Mr. Travis told the council. “This year we ask that they don’t do that. We’re going to fund them all. Six of those are funded from a grant.”
The school safety grant program will reimburse the city for one officer at each school. The school board previously reimbursed the city for a second SRO at the DCHS main campus and an SRO at the ninth-grade campus. The city funded the sergeant/detective to coordinate the program.
With Dr. Southerland’s request for additional SROs at DCHS and DMS, the Dickson Police Department is committing 11 officers to the SRO program:
• Three at the DCHS main campus;
• One at the DCHS ninth-grade campus;
• Two at DMS;
• One each at Dickson Elementary School, Centennial Elementary School, Oakmont Elementary School and The Discovery School; and
• A sergeant/detective.
“We pledge to have 11 if we can hire 11,” Mr. Travis said at the July 7 meeting. “I think right now we’re at 10. We’re coming into the school year staffed better than we’ve been in quite some years.”
Without discussion, the council unanimously approved Resolution #2025-38 to approve the MOU for the 2025-2026 school year and it was forwarded to the Dickson County Board of Education and signed by Dr. Southerland.
The total cost of salaries and benefits for 11 School Resource Officers is over $820,000. The SROs serve 180 school days and five days of annual training. The SRO program is a part of the Dickson Police Department’s Special Services Division under Capt. Jessica Blackwell.
The Dickson Police Department launched an SRO program at Dickson Elementary School with a grant in 1998. In 2008 the program was expanded to DCHS and DMS was added in 2011. Following the Parkland, Fla., school shooting in 2018, Mayor Don L. Weiss Jr. proposed adding two more officers, one to serve at DCHS and one to float among the elementary schools. At the start of 2019, the SRO program expanded to eight officers covering the six public schools located in the city and in 2020 a sergeant/detective was added.
The Dickson County Sheriff’s Office provides SROs for the remaining schools in the county.
Dickson County Schools begin the 2025-2026 year on Aug. 1.
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