The primary goal of the Chattahoochee County (Georgia) School District Police Department (CCSDPD) is to ensure the physical safety of the school district’s students. The department is also dedicated to building positive personal relationships with the children in grades K–12 and helping them make good decisions about their lives and responsibilities to others.

An example of this dedication is seen in the August 2025 Photo Contest photo. (CCSDPD) Officer Taylor Southerland (left), Chief Ray Harralson (center), and Officer Robert Cooper (right) are seen posing with students and furry friends at the school district’s celebration of National Red Ribbon Week in October 2024. As the nation’s largest and oldest drug prevention campaign, Red Ribbon was launched in 1988 to support awareness of the dangers of drug use by promoting safe and fun activities that offer positive alternatives to substance use and abuse.

Said Dr. Kristie Brooks, the superintendent of the Chattahoochee County School District, “The theme of Red Ribbon Week is making good choices, and each day the kids engaged in an activity that emphasized this and stressed the importance of caring for others.”

A Warm and Furry Ending to Red Ribbon Week

The culminating activity was the animal farm, where the photograph was taken. The school police brought baby goats, a calf, and four dogs to the county’s elementary school and entrusted children in grades three through five with the animals’ care, feeding, and grooming. By taking on this responsibility, showing initiative, and following through with feeding and watering schedules, these children learned good character traits which can influence them throughout their lives.

Said Superintendent Brooks, “Though this event centered around Red Ribbon Week, it is just one example of how our school police connect with students throughout the school year. The department is very community policing oriented, so the officers spend a lot of time building personal relationships.

Through teaching and mentoring, they engage our young people in learning opportunities that foster communication and build trust as well as community safety. They also work with various student groups and school organizations, coaching soccer, baseball, and other sports, as well as with parents and community groups.

“Our school officers volunteer with Family Connection, for instance. It supports services such as the local food bank and Latavia’s Closet, which is named for a young lady in the community who lost her life to a rare medical condition and offers free clothing to anybody in need.”

A Traditional Police Department with a Focus on Students

“But though the focus is on students,” added Superintendent Brooks, “this is a regular police department, with the same duties as any municipal police department, including arresting powers. On a day-to-day basis, the responsibility of our officers is the overall safety and security of the Chattahoochee County school system, securing the premises of all school buildings, monitoring cameras, conducting walk-throughs with metal detectors, and other procedures.

“The school police also have a strong collaborative relationship with the Chattahoochee County Sheriff’s Office, which provides firearm and security trainings for them, ensuring they can respond proactively to any serious incident.”

Commenting on how important fast, reliable communications are to public safety, Superintendent Brooks noted that a COPS Office grant received in 2019 helped the school police substantially.

“We used it to support our communications system, to connect to the Sheriff’s Office Dispatch,” she said, “as well as for training, and for building secure entrance atriums in the schools. That was a game-changer for us, enabling us to work preventively for a safe and secure environment.”

Brooks believes that the popularity of the county’s public schools with families throughout the Chattahoochee Valley Region, which encompasses five counties, can be partly due to the positive relationships the school police have built through these activities.

Located on Georgia’s western border with Alabama, approximately 20 miles from Columbus, Chattahoochee County is home to Fort Benning, a United States Army post with a permanent workforce of about 35,000 and a total population of more than 120,000, including active-duty military on permanent assignment or short-term training, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees, and civilian employees. The 20 percent of county land not occupied by the Fort is home to just 10,000 residents.

An Innovative School System with a Nurturing Environment

According to Brooks, though the Fort has its own school system, most families choose the county system for their children, because it provides a very nurturing environment as well as innovative learning opportunities for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). County schools also provide advanced learning courses, so that middle school students can earn high school credit and high school students can earn college credit.

As an example of the school’s nurturing environment, Brooks tells the story of a high school boy who was in substantial trouble in the community, with attendance issues and failing grades. School police formed a strong relationship with him, and through mentoring and other support, he became a student leader. He now holds a job with the school district’s facilities and maintenance department.

“He said he got his focus through conversations with Chief Harralson and Officer Cooper, who helped him get on the right path. The school police also met with his family and helped them out in other ways as well, because serving others makes us a stronger community. The officers were able to teach him how to repair roof leaks and do other home repairs, which substantially impacted the family. Now, this young man is able to be a strong support for his family.

“What we’ve seen is that community policing builds the trust that enable us to maintain good relationships with our students, their families, and everybody in the community. This helps our school police because we are proactively involved, which prevents problems and keeps everybody safe. In the past five years, we have had no serious discipline issue that required expulsion. Our discipline data is very positive.”

From the smiles on the children’s faces in the animal farm photo, it’s clear that community policing in Chattahoochee County District Schools has been a positive experience for the students, too.

Photo courtesy of Kenyada Heard, Principal of Chattahoochee County Elementary School.

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