The city of Newnan Police will start The School Familiarization Program this school year. Police officers will make city schools a part of their regular patrols. The program calls for officers to conduct foot patrols through all the schools within their assigned beat.

 Officers will make stops at city schools and actually go into schools and sign in as visitors. Police officers have always had access to school maps. Many officers have been to the exterior of the schools but never really been through the interior of each of the schools. This gives each officer a chance to become familiar with the interior of each school and get to know the staff. This program also helps with police officers and school faculty familiarizing them with one another. In addition to school resource officers this will be an added bonus for the safety of the students and school faculty.

 “This program only increases the chance for success, success being saving lives, should be a crisis occur in one of the schools,” said Newnan Police Chief Buster Meadows.” We are looking for ways to increase safety in our schools as children are one of the community’s most important assets,” continues Chief Meadows.

 “This also helps with gas consumption because currently the officers are required to stop 15 minutes out of every hour to perform foot patrol. This means for officers getting out of the patrol cars and canvassing shopping centers, neighborhoods, parking lots and office buildings. The schools will now be a part of that foot patrol time,” says Chief Meadows.

 The School Familiarization Plan was inserted with the following goals for a violent school related incident:

•Train all personnel in rapid deployment response and tactics

•Supply officers with equipment needed to effectively respond to an incident

•Continue to train in schools and other potential targets

•The Mission Statement of the Newnan Police Department is to provide, well-trained, well-equipped and motivated employees who are empowered as a team to protect and serve the citizens, the employees and the city of Newnan. 

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