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The Stanford Police Department (SPD) has hired another School Resource Officer (SRO), according to an update from Police Chief Zach Middleton to Stanford City Council members. 

Middleton said James Mayfield, a certified officer, has been hired to work as SRO for Lincoln County Middle School. 

In September of last year the Lincoln County School Board and SPD reached a new agreement to expand safety across the school district by approving the hire of seven SROs – one to serve at each school in the district. 

SPD currently has six SROs hired at this time including Sgt. Chase Marcum, who is primarily at the high school, now Mayfield who will be at the middle school, and Ray Sayre, Eric Taylor, Jeff Peek and Kyle Hester who are covering four of the five elementary schools. 

“We are still doing some spot filling as we are short one officer for an elementary school, but hiring the Middle School SRO was a significant step as this frees up more time for the SROs to and patrol to cover the schools as needed per the agreement with the board,” Middleton said. 

There is one SRO position left to fill. In the meantime, patrol has been supplementing coverage gaps. 

The decision to place an SRO at every school was made following an incident involving an elementary student bringing a firearm to school. The school board held a special called meeting and voted to add the three additional SRO positions, bringing the total to seven SROs.