By Michelle Yun
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Walking past groups of students in crowded hallways, sophomore Megan Olson said she sometimes gets a nervous feeling and wonders if she is always safe. So for students like Olson, the school’s decision to hire two new police officers this year is good news. This raises the current number of police officers in the school to four.

Olson said she believes this is a good step toward a safer school but does not think it is enough. She said that this school is too big for only four officers and needs about 10.

Schools across the country, including Carmel, are taking steps to improve safety. According to Yahoo News!, on Aug. 15 in Harrold, TX, the school district with 110 students allowed teachers to carry guns in school, hoping to prevent the recent school shootings around the nation. While measures as drastic as that haven’t happened here, the new officers are part of this school’s ability to keep kids safe.

The new police officers, Shane VanNatter and Dan Jent, are actually Carmel Police Department officers who work at this school.

They said they think this school is a very safe one considering its size.

“For the size of this school,” VanNatter said, “it’s incredibly safe. Considering there’s 4200 students here and we really don’t have that many problems. We don’t really have any violence.”

However, the officers will arrest students in order to teach a lesson on obeying laws that apply to every citizen of Carmel.

He said, “There are kids who get arrested and that’s because we want them to understand if they break the law, you’re not just going to get suspension for it, get detention or something like that, they’re going to be arrested. So they have to understand that they’re going to pay a criminal price for doing something criminal.”

Last year, additional officers worked only sporadically. This school, the four officers here are now going to be at school every day from the beginning to the end.

Jent said, “We picked different days of the year and worked sporadically. And this year, they have added the two positions and did away with that. This is a more permanent position.”

He said that their constant presences will allow for increased protection.

“You’ll have different officers in different ends of the school,” Jent said. “It’s also to cut down on the school shooting and kind of things that’s been going around the country. They want more officers in the school to deter that and be here, in case it did happen, to deal with it.”

VanNatter added that the officers will spread out over all four ends of the campus. “That way, you’ve got officers kind of close to whatever would happen because it’s a long way from one side of the building to another,” he said.

According to Sergeant Phil Hobson, the addition of the new officers was also part of a financial issue. By hiring police officers who worked for the City of Carmel, the school is saving money now since in the past, the school hired its own officers.

Hobson said, “I think (the school) thought it would be more financially smart for them to allow the city to provide the law enforcement portion so they didn’t have to worry about regulations and evidence processing and evidence collection and equipment that were required.”

In addition, Hobson said, “The city then is responsible for everything. And I think that in the long run, that saves the school money.”

VanNatter also said the biggest part of being safe is just paying attention. “The victims of crime are usually the ones who are oblivious to it,” he said. “They either think it won’t happen to them or their school is too safe for that.”