School may be out for summer, but area school district police officers are still hitting the books.

MELANIE BURFORD/DMN

Dallas ISD Officers Jose Rodriguez (center) and Pat Gross watch students arriving for summer school at Fred F. Florence Middle School.

According to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education Licensing Requirements, peace officers must complete at least 40 hours of continuing education training every 24 months.

Because school district police are busy during most of the academic year, "summer is one of the only times that we can take part in training," said Dallas ISD deputy police Chief Gary Hodges.

Much of the training involves state mandated courses that cover topics such family violence, child abuse, sexual assault and sex offender characteristics. And most departments design their own individual training schedules as well.But aside from the training, school district police officials say they still can't take a vacation from enforcing the law around their campuses.

"This summer we have a significant number of our schools open for summer school," Hodges said. "Including a number of our secondary schools, where officers have to be present to handle any situations that may occur."

However, DISD is not the only school district keeping its police department busy this summer.

Lancaster ISD officers recently went from patrolling summer school to participating in training to investigating a burglary at Lancaster High School – all in the same day.

"School district police departments, especially small ones like us, don't have divisions," Lancaster ISD police Chief Keith Wilkerson said. "If a crime occurs, we have to investigate, question, file the report and appear in court. We do a complete 360 degrees."

Wilkerson said his department, like most other school district police units, use the summer to catch up on filing paperwork, train officers, assist the city police when needed and plan for the upcoming school year.

Ennis ISD police Chief Ross Jones said school district police departments push to fit all their work into an allotted number of contracted days as opposed to regular city police officers, who may work four days on and four days off, or similar shifts.

"We try to give our officers some time off with their families during the summer since they work so many regular shifts plus a lot of evening events during the [school] year," Red Oak ISD police Chief Scott Lindsey said. "But there is a great deal of work still to be done."

DISD police Assistant Chief Bill Avera agreed.

"It is truly a year-round job," said Avera. "When school ends, our job keeps going."