Waverly is a small, unincorporated community in Codington County, which has a K-12 school consolidated with nearby South Shore.
That means there is no organized local government, police force, or ambulance service in the community.
Jon Meyer is the district superintendent. He said there’s one issue at the front of minds.
“The challenge we face is the reality that any emergency we have or if we require police intervention for anything, we know response time is a minimum of 20 minutes away," Meyer said. "We have other deputies living in the area, but at any given time they could be on patrol or stationed anywhere throughout the county, and Codington County is not a small county.”
Meyer said that's why the district is considering a shared school resource officer – or SRO.
“Typically, county resources are pretty strapped, I mean they have a large geographical expanse to try to cover, but our county sheriff Brad Howell approached us with an idea he had about maybe adding a deputy position, and then having that deputy position a shared SRO between the Henry School District, the Florence School District, and then us at Waverly-South Shore.”
While the proposal is still in early development, Meyer said in rural school districts just one added voice can make a difference.
“Our need isn’t that we have all these problems and now we need law enforcement presence, our need is on the preventative aspect," Meyer said. "A benefit of any smaller school – and it’s just a numbers game – we get the opportunity to get to know our kids on a deeper level, get to know our families on a deeper level.”
Meyer said he believes out-of-the-box thinking is required to bring modern practices to isolated school districts.