Shaler school board approves contract with Millvale for school resource officer

The Shaler Area School Board unanimously approved a contract with Millvale Borough for a school resource officer for the 2023-24 school year at its meeting on Sept. 20.

There had been a contract in place and now Shaler is renewing it, according to district superintendent Sean Aiken, who said it will likely be a multi-year agreement.

“We’ve been working with Millvale for probably about four years now,” Aiken said. “This first year they said (the cost) was $86,000 (per year) and then it’ll just grow incrementally based on the agreement that the officer has in the Millvale Borough. We pay for the majority of the fee (approximately 80-90%) for that officer because he’s with us.”

Aiken said Shaler has had grants in the past to help pay for the school resource officer.

“We utilized those when we first started the SRO program,” Aiken said. “Right now we do not have (a grant). Usually, they’ll be start-up grants from the state but that’s not an occurrence right now.”

The SRO contract with Millvale Borough accounts for one of two SROs that Shaler schools has, according to Aiken. The second officer, Frank Spiker, is from the Shaler Township Police Department.

“The officers both rotate through all of our schools in the district and work with our students on a variety of educational topics in addition to their law enforcement responsibilities,” deputy superintendent Bryan O’Black said.