Investigation at Handy Head Start

 

A reader has sent us the following account of an investigation into the SRO at the W. C. Handy School in Florence. This is extremely serious and needs to be resolved:

In January 2025 a Handy SRO officer was accused of inappropriately touching a child.  The school dismissed it, so it was taken to the Board of Education.  During their active investigation the SRO was at the parents request asked not to be on that campus; however, just a few weeks ago this officer was back on campus. When the Principal (who was leading the investigation) was questioned she played dumb and defaulted questions to the board of education which profusely apologized and admitted to "dropping the ball" and agreed the officer was not supposed to be there and immediately asked him to leave. 

How could this happen, why would the Principal who knew this was still being investigated allow it? The officer obviously knows how investigations work, why would he step foot on those premises around kids especially the one that reported him and not allow the investigation to be completed? How does the Superintendent not know he was there? Seems to me they have already sided with the accused officer and are disregarding the feelings and safety of this not even 5 year old child.

We know people are innocent until proven guilty but the school is not doing everything possible to safeguard the kids until this is fully investigated. That SRO should be on administrative leave. It just seems a conflict that the board & FPD would be able to fairly investigate their own employee. I don't want to further victimize the child but they need some public pressure on them to do the right thing.