Concerned with the potential impact of an Ohio attorney general legal opinion that determined private schools in townships aren’t permitted to contract with local law enforcement for services, state Sen. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, plans to introduce legislation to permit it.

“It’s absolutely essential that the safety of students in Ohio is the top priority,” Cutrona said. “We want to clean up the language so law enforcement can provide resource officers.”

In a Sept. 16 legal opinion, Attorney General Dave Yost, a Republican, determined that townships that don’t have home rule lack “authority to directly enter into a memorandum of understanding with a chartered nonpublic school to provide school resource officer services to the school” under state law.

The legal opinion came in response to a question from Stark County Prosecutor Kyle Stone about a charter school in Lake Township that sought to employ a school resource officer from the Uniontown Police Department, which was willing to enter into a contract.

Yost wrote: “I conclude that the General Assembly has not authorized townships to enter into memoranda of understanding with chartered, nonpublic schools for the services of a school resource officer.”

Cutrona said this became a local issue because Holy Family School, a pre-K through grade 8 school in Poland, has a contract with the township police department for a school resource officer. Cutrona said Poland Township police contacted him concerned about the impact of the legal opinion.

“I want to avoid an issue in Poland as well as in other parts of Ohio by creating a law that permits private schools to contract for police services,” Cutrona said.

He added: “This opinion exposes our private schools to unnecessary risk and leaves them on the hook to coordinate security from outside their surrounding community. Addressing this issue in law guarantees that private schools in Poland Township and across the 33rd Senate District have the security they trust.”

As this is an AG legal opinion, nothing is changing in the contract Holy Family has with Poland Township police, but Cutrona said he wants to make sure that isn’t put at risk.

“We want to provide resource officers for children everywhere,” he said. “If you’re in a private school, you should have access to resource officers.”

Cutrona said Holy Family School is paying for the township police presence and his bill won’t change that arrangement.

“We’ve had a massive rise in school violence,” he said. “There’s a lot of activity happening nationwide. Parents want to keep their children safe. This attorney general opinion has not gone through the courts. A legislative change would resolve any issue.”

Cutrona, who sits on the Senate Education Committee, said he will introduce the bill shortly and is hopeful it can get passed quickly.

“It could affect a lot of different schools,” he said.