The Cobb County School District has named Wayne Pickett as its new chief of police.
Pickett, who has been the district’s deputy chief, succeeds Ron Storey, who died in April.
Pickett, whose appointment was approved by the Cobb Board of Education, was sworn in on May 16, according to the Cobb school district.
The district’s police department has around 80 staffers and sworn officers, many of them assigned to schools as resource officers.
Pickett is a former officer with the Cobb County Police Department and has 41 years of law enforcement experience.
The Cobb school district is undertaking a variety of safety initiatives in the wake of a deadly shooting last year at Apalachee High School.
In October the district hired a private security firm with former intelligence and military officials to provide what it calls proactive solutions to address not only potential active-shooter situations but also gang activity, cyberviolence and other safety threats.
Canine detection teams also will be employed, with another security firm training CCSD officers to work with the dogs who can identify “person-worn or concealed-carried explosives and firearms.”
But the district has provided few specifics on some of those measures, and in April, when the weapons-sniffing dog purchase came up, district officials would not indicate how many animals and trainers were included.
The AJC reported last week that the Cobb school district has paid Servius, the private security firm, $2.6 million, mostly from a state security grant, but neither party would explain the details of what services are being provided.
That includes the kind of data Servius is collecting on students to anticipate potential trouble, as well as security assessments of the more than 100 campuses in the Cobb school district.
Nor has the district explained how Servius would work with the district’s police department on those safety initiatives.
The AJC report noted that the Cobb school board did not approve the Servius contract, including a $1.1 million check in April for the school security assessment work.
Servius was to have been involved in a school safety town hall meeting at Hillgrove High School in April, but the Cobb school district canceled it for security reasons, days after a contentious town hall in Acworth by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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