SPIRIT LAKE - A police officer will soon start roaming the halls of the three schools in Spirit Lake to interact with students.

Spirit Lake Police has been awarded a $120,000 Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant through the U.S. Department of Justice, which will fund a full-time school resource officer position for three years.

"The officer will start as soon as possible," said Spirit Lake Police Chief Keith Hutcheson, adding that the officer should be named in the near future. "The community needs to know that their kids are safe in school. The city and school district have been great partners on this."

The Lakeland Joint School District and the city of Spirit Lake will each chip in $30,000 over three years toward the position.

The grant and school district will pay for the officer's salary and benefits. The city's cost will outfit and train the officer and pay for any needed overtime.

The SRO will spend time at Timberlake High School, Timberlake Junior High and Spirit Lake Elementary. Those schools have a combined enrollment of 1,133. The officer will also work for the police department during the summer.

Hutcheson, who applied for the grant in June, said he hopes the position can be funded after three years.

"The position will provide a link between the schools, police department and community," he said. "This person will be around the students, eat lunch with them and be there to talk to them. This will allow us to be more proactive about being in schools than reactive."

There was a SRO in Spirit Lake schools - and at Lakeland High and Junior High in Rathdrum - several years ago before funding for the positions ran out.

"We support the idea of school resource officers, but have struggled in the past to find a stable way to have them," said Tom Taggart, the school district's finance manager. "This was an affordable way for us to get one in place in our Spirit Lake schools."

"The funding and the logistics were issues," he said. "We have a very good working relationship with Rathdrum Police as well as the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office. We have officers in schools on a regular basis. It is something we will continue to pursue."