The Boyle County Sheriff’s Office has provided a school resource officer to the Danville Christian Academy through a collaborative effort between the sheriff’s office, fiscal court, and DCA Board of Directors.

“It was the only school in the county that didn’t have a school resource officer,” said Sheriff Taylor Bottom. “When I took my oath in January, I took it seriously. It was to protect everybody, regardless of if you live here, work here, or are just driving through. You are protected by the sheriff’s office. There were several volunteers of off duty officers who have been providing protection for a while. I think they are very happy someone is out here full time now. I want them to get credit because they have been doing it for free. I think this is going to be a great partnership.”      

Danville Christian Academy upgraded its security systems during the summer and its administration wants to take any measure they can to keep the students safe.

“When you see these instances of school shootings and things like that it is just so heartbreaking,” said DCA Interim Headmaster Pep Francis. “We don’t want to have our heads in the sand and think that it can’t happen here. We we’re tossing around the idea when Taylor brought it to the board. It really wasn’t in our budget, but we had to do anything we can do to protect the kids. A lot of times people have the perception of private schools and assume we are full of rich kids. We have a large majority that use financial aid, we have an international program where we have children from China, Uganda, Sudan. Some of them come over here with nothing. One of the boys who came here just a couple weeks ago, 16 years old, some other boys commented on his shoes and said they liked them and he said they were his first ever pair.”

DCA’s school resource officer is Deputy Derrick Robbins who served as the Boyle County Sheriff until his retirement last December.

“I didn’t have any plans after I retired, then Taylor contacted and told me he had something in the works and wanted to know if I was interested,” said Robbins. “It has been a cool experience. Schools are needing school resource officers. What is crazy about it is being around these kids, seeing them in chapel, seeing how they interact, I’m not so sure I didn’t need them in my life to make me a better christian more than they needed me out here to protect them. It’s just cool how they are all so friendly, the staff has been great. I’m just trying to figure out how I fit in and what adjustments we can make to make it safer while also providing small school intimate setting where it is not a prison, There has to be a learning environment and you need to find the balance between learning and safety.”

Placing someone with so much experience into such an important role made an impression on Judge-Executive Trille Bottom.

“We are excited for this opportunity to partner with DCA,” she said. “We have a former sheriff that is well experienced in his role is a great to be DCA’s SRO is a great opportunity.”