MOULTRIE, Ga.—While individuals around the nation are calling for gun control to decrease the likelihood of school shootings, others are calling for an increase in the number of school resource officers or even a combination of both.

The Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office wants the community to know that the children in the county’s schools are being adequately and effectively protected.

There are approximately nine student resource officers who work in the schools in the Moultrie and Colquitt County area, all whom have undergone ALERRT training, a training program that teaches how to effectively neutralize a shooter or other threat in any given circumstance, according to Lt. David Kent.

Kent is the director of the school resource officers and also teaches the C.H.A.M.P.S. program at the schools.

There are four resource officers at Colquitt County High School, two at C.A. Gray Jr. High, one at Willie J. Williams Middle School and one at the Colquitt County Achievement Center.

Sheriff Rod Howell said that the sheriff’s office is currently reviewing the need for more resource officers at the schools and will make a final decision this summer.

Howell said he would like to possibly have a couple more officers offset the need with the elementary schools. Kent and another officer teach the C.H.A.M.P.S. program at the local schools, which could potentially leave a school undermanned at times.

Howell’s concern with the distance of some of the schools is another reason he would like to implement a few more resource officers.

“We have really been on the forefront of school shootings,” Howell said. “We train every summer with an active shooter drill with faculty and staff.”

“We bring kids out there and EMS and the police department.” Howell said.

Howell plans on extending the invitation for the active shooter drill training to the Georgia State Patrol and the Department of Natural Resources.

“They also patrol our areas,” Howell said. “So they could very well hear the call come out should something ever happen and we’re teaching everyone how to handle situations.”

Howell believes the ALERRT training is effective by teaching how to approach the threat and move towards it, instead of waiting for help to arrive.

“If one of our resource officers can identify where an active shooter is, it is their job to go get them, to reduce casualties,” Howell said. “There is no hesitation, they don’t wait for partners, they have been trained to neutralize any threats with no hesitation.”

Kent said a typical day of an SRO consists of helping with traffic control, monitoring the halls of the schools, responding to calls from administration and handling anything that goes on outside of the building as well.

Howell said the ALERRT training the SROs undergo varies from the training a regular police officer would go through.

“It’s similar but it’s more in depth,” Howell said. “ALERRT is what the entire nation is going to…If I work in the city of Doerun and I hear a shooting call at my school, I’m trained the exact same way as anyone else that is responding.”

Kent said officers receive an Alert Level 1 certification at the end of the course and the SROs are fully armed wherever they go on the school campus.

The sheriff’s office is down one SRO, but is taking the hiring process slowly as it is an extensive process to find the right fit, he said.

Kent said he doesn’t want to just fill a spot; he wants the individual that gets hired to be someone that has the passion for protecting children and will have the right demeanor for the school system.

“I can tell you, if anything ever goes wrong, any one of these officers can handle it,” Howell said.