Board approves return of school resource officers on Olympia campuses

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Students in the Olympia School District will soon see school resource officers back on campus.

Thursday night, the school board unanimously approved policy that would bring armed officers back.

The vote came after two gun-related incidents at Capital High School that happened less than two weeks after students returned to class.

The first incident happened when a student brought a loaded gun to school on the first day of class.

A few days later, there was a scare at the school when teachers thought they saw a handgun in one of the bathrooms. Police found a BB gun in a toilet.

“He was disturbed, I think, in the back of his mind,” said parent Lori Lin.

“I think it was kind of hectic for the children, like, we had to take out our daughter for the first incident,” said parent Ashley Warren.

Every parent KIRO 7 talked with at Capital High School says they are ready to welcome SRO’s back.

“I’m going to be glad to have SROs back,” said Rebecca Cornelius.

“I think it’s a good thing to help protect our children,” said Warren.

“It would be good to have people so that we’re not just relying on teachers to take care of everything that we have someone that is official, that is trained that can deal with matters that might arise,” said Lin.

It’s been three years since the district wrote SRO’s out of the budget in 2020.

“I’m going to be glad to have SROs back. This is my fourth child to be here, so I’ve been part of the district for a couple of decades now, and my oldest was here when Officer Seith was here and had nothing but positives with my last three kids here,” said Cornelius.

Before SRO’s are placed back in schools the school board president says there still needs to be more input and the board must approve the memorandum as well as the budget.

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