VANCOUVER, Wash. — For the first time in four years, the Clark County Sheriff's Office will station a school resource officer at one of the local high schools, the agency announced Friday.
Deputy Chelsea Quiggle will work full-time at Prairie High School in the Battle Ground Public Schools system, starting with the 2024-25 school year. She's been with the sheriff's office since 2019 and has a background in education, the agency said, having taught previously at schools in Kelso and Longview.
Prior to 2020, the Clark County Sheriff's Office supplied school resource officers to five high schools across four districts, including Prairie High School, Hockinson High School, Skyview High School, Columbia River High School and Heritage High School.
But the agency said that the combination of budget and staffing constraints, on top of the pandemic-related shift to remote learning for students, caused CCSO to pause its SRO program in 2020.
Those staffing issues persisted for years. By June 2022, Clark County had the lowest law enforcement to citizen ratio in the country. By that September, issues like these motivated the county board to strip management of the county jail away from the sheriff's office.
According to the sheriff's office, leadership began discussing the return of SROs with school district administrators in 2023, after John Horch became sheriff. Once staffing levels had improved slightly by 2024, the sheriff's office said it committed to providing two SROs for Clark County schools by the 2024-25 school year, and three more in consecutive school years.
Sheriff Horch and sheriff's office leadership met with the Evergreen, Vancouver and Battle Ground school districts to discuss the return of SROs, the agency said. The former two districts "were unable to proceed due to budget constraints," but Battle Ground freed up the funds to take one one.
In the agreement they struck, Battle Ground Public Schools pays 80% of the deputy's salary and the sheriff's office pays 20%.
"When I became Sheriff, one of my key objectives was to re-engage CCSO in the School Resource Officer program for local school districts interested in partnering with us,” said Sheriff Horch. “I’m pleased that we’ve achieved this goal and look forward to the prospect of expanding the program further if our staffing increases. I also hope to see other local law enforcement agencies join us in this important effort."