SECURITY OFFICER CONTRACT UP IN AIR
Woodward says county trying to finalize promised deal with Notre Dame Prep as soon as possible
With school starting in less than 60 days at Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, parents are expressing frustration that the county hasn’t yet finalized a contract to provide school resource officers through the sheriff’s office.
Andy Guest, Notre Dame’s head of school, told parents in an email last week the contract remains up in the air and he’s heard nothing from county officials.
The school has had part-time deputies since 2013, under a memorandum of agreement with the
Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, which is not the same as a legally binding contract. Notre Dame had two deputies until last fall, when only one was available. That’s when the sheriff’s office suggested the school pursue having full-time school resource officers (SROs).
Guest has repeatedly suggested to parents that other public schools have direct contracts with the sheriff’s office; those contracts are handled through the municipalities. Notre Dame pays the City of Pontiac for the SROs. Pontiac has a police contract with the county.
At Thursday’s county commission meeting, the board’s chairman Dave Woodward said he is committed to finalizing the contract as soon as possible. He said Guest’s messages to parents are adding unnecessary worry.
“He’s blasted off three emails to whip up parents into a frenzy … to the extent of some of them threatening lawsuits. What he’s done has been a distraction and unhelpful,” Woodward said, adding that Guest hasn’t contacted him to ask for updates.
Woodward said the contract can’t be finalized until a fiscal analysis shows that services to a private school district are not being subsidized by the taxpay
ers. Liability issues must be clear and baked into the contract, he said, with the final document able to be used as a template for any county policing contracts with private or public schools or other entities.
Commissioner Karen Joliat, whose youngest child graduated from Notre Dame last year, said she hasn’t talked to Guest because the school is in Commissioner Brendan Johnson’s district.
“I understand it’s hard to have patience when you’re told one thing and that’s not happening,” Joliat said. “I’ve been in their shoes and had that safety net been threatened, I’d be panicked, too.”
Republican commissioners planned to raise the issue at Thursday’s meeting, until Woodward promised the contract would be finalized before school starts in August.
Commissioner Mike Spisz said the contract needs to be finalized well before classes start. Spisz said he expects other schools to request similar arrangements. County officials are also reviewing agreements for events at Somerset Mall and the Renaissance Festival.
Johnson, a Notre Dame alum and a friend of Guest’s family, said he’s talked to Guest at least four times since March, most recently May 3, and the two have “had some phone tag since then.
“I told him in our third phone call I was pretty offended that he was saying he hadn’t heard from county officials, because I am a county official now,” Johnson said. “As an alumnus and member of the mass-shooting generation .. I’ll do whatever I can to ensure students are safe. No one is purposefully slowing down what is not only a complicated issue, but a complex issue.”
Notre Dame has a contract with a private security firm, which Guest is considering expanding. But, he said, parents want police officers in each of the two Notre Dame campuses who, unlike parttime deputies and private security officers, have the power to arrest and conduct investigations, including search and seizures.
Woodward said he’s planning a special commission meeting to address the school contract and wants the agenda to include the decision on the county’s proposed purchase of the Ottawa Towers in Pontiac. The due diligence period for the real estate ends before the next regular commission meeting. Woodward said he wants to avoid the cost of multiple special meetings by working around the commissioners’ schedules, which include family vacations.
Getting Notre Dame’s contract right matters because the county needs a uniform approach to any public-private policing contract, Woodward said.
“And we are going to get it right before school starts in August,” he said.