JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Standing outside of the school district building he now presides over, Duval County Superintendent Nikolai Vitti talks with only Action News about the swift actions of a school resource officer that prevented a potential tragedy at Englewood High School.
He calls it nothing short of heroic.
“Oftentimes, we hear about the bad scenarios, the bad situations, but on a day-to-day basis we have heroes. I think it’s a great example of being proactive and why we have SROs at our schools,” said Vitti.
Vitti tells us since the Sandy Hook shooting in Connecticut, Duval County has ramped up its own security. The school district has added SROs, armed police officers, to the K-8 schools. The district already had a full-time officer patrolling every middle and high school. But now, it also has an SRO regularly visit the elementary schools.
“We want to make sure we have all of our schools at least covered at some point in the day with visibility,” said Vitti.
With the recent boost to the budget at the state level from Gov. Scott, Vitti says that visibility could soon expand to more cameras in schools, too.
But it doesn’t take away from the magnitude of simple manpower, which Vitti says we saw displayed this week at Englewood.
“This was just one more example of a hero stepping forward and making a difference in our schools,” he said.
