Missing records raise new questions about Habersham school police authority

CLARKESVILLE, Ga. — A Habersham County parent is asking school officials to prove that the district’s police department has the legal authority to operate. Her email to school administrators and Board of Education members followed a series of reports by Now Georgia questioning the department’s authority to conduct traffic stops, write tickets, and also unveiling the police chief’s unauthorized use of taxpayer-funded equipment for a private nonprofit.

“As a taxpayer and as a parent, I am asking you, as our elected officials, to provide proof that it is truly a legitimate law enforcement agency,” Leigh Stallings-Wood wrote in an email sent to Habersham County School Superintendent Patrick Franklin, Assistant Superintendent David Leenman, all five school board members, Habersham County Manager Tim Sims, Sheriff Robin Krockum, and local media.

Stallings-Wood said none of the elected school board members responded to her request. Those same board members — Robert Barron, Joey Duncan, Darlene Hudson, Russ Nelson, and Doug Westmoreland — also refused to answer questions from Now Georgia.

Under scrutiny from the start

Questions about the department’s legitimacy first surfaced in 2023 when then-Superintendent of Schools Matthew Cooper announced Murray Kogod as the school system’s new public safety director. Despite Cooper’s insistence that the school district was not establishing a police department, Kogod listed his title as “Police Chief” with the Georgia Peace Officer Standards and Training Council (POST) days before his official hiring. School-owned vehicles were wrapped with vinyl graphics identifying them as “Habersham Schools Police Department” vehicles.

Documents from 2013 say Habersham County Schools was dissolving its police department and turning law-enforcement duties over to the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office.

Thirteen years later, the school system is operating a police department again — but the school district, POST, and Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) have not produced the foundational records that Now Georgia has sought for months to show how and when that authority was restored.

Beyond paperwork

The question matters beyond titles and paperwork.

Habersham County Schools Police officers carry firearms, make off-campus traffic stops, and have approved hefty school-bus citations. Georgia law says certified school security personnel may exercise law-enforcement powers on school property when authorized by the local board of education, and a board may separately authorize them to carry law-enforcement firearms or weapons. However, the Habersham County School System has not provided documented proof that such authorities exist.

After a string of recent controversies involving the department, Habersham County Sheriff Robin Krockum suspended Kogod’s reserve-deputy status along with that of Habersham Schools Police Officer Victoria Hopper.

Former school employees told Now Georgia they remember how the old school police department ended.

Former Habersham County School Superintendent Judy Forbes said, “We never operated like this one [the school police department], out writing school bus tickets,” and said a functioning school police department “must have documents and board approval.”

J. “Marie” Griffin-Taylor, now an associate professor at Truett McConnell University, said she worked for the school police and was let go in 2013 when “the school board voted to disband the police department.” Griffin-Taylor specifically characterized the school police department as being dissolved, which is why she lost her job.

The paper trail, slim as it is, supports their recollections.

Police department dissolved

A May 1, 2013 letter from then-Superintendent Matthew Cooper said budget problems were forcing the system to consider transferring school security to then–Sheriff Joey Terrell.

“Dissolving the school system’s police department will create the need for stronger partnerships,” Cooper wrote.

Later that month, the local newspaper reported the board voted 4-1 to “hand over police functions to the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office.”

But the story changed ten years later when Terrell decided not to run for reelection.

In March 2023, school board minutes show the board approved Kogod as “Director of School Safety.” At the time, he was serving as Terrell’s chief deputy. The minutes do not show a vote or any discussion of reactivating or recreating a disbanded police department. Yet Kogod was sworn in later that day as police chief.

Cooper publicly said the safety director would “technically serve” as chief and “needs to have the full powers of a law enforcement officer, including the ability to carry a firearm.”  This contrasts sharply with Kogod’s predecessor, Adam Bagwell.

Bagwell, who served as a principal and public safety director, coordinated school safety planning and training with local law enforcement but was not considered law enforcement himself. Bagwell never carried a gun, was never identified as a police chief, and did not drive a school board police car.

Cooper explained away Kogod’s position as “chief,” saying the old school police department had never formally disappeared and remained “on paper at POST.”  However, POST does not regulate police agencies nor determine whether they are active or disbanded.

Catalyst for change

Now Georgia asked leaders from local law enforcement agencies whether they were aware of any incident, safety failure, or other circumstance in 2023 that would have created a need to move away from the sheriff-led school resource officer program and (re)establish a separate school police command structure with its own chief. None could recall an incident that clearly explained the need for change.

Forbes and Griffin-Taylor also said they were unaware of any event that would have prompted the school system to recreate a police department that had previously been dissolved.

A former Habersham County Sheriff’s Office employee offered a different explanation, although Now Georgia has not independently established it as the reason for the change. The former employee suggested Kogod may have faced uncertainty about his future under a new sheriff. According to that former employee, the school system offered Kogod a new position while allowing him to continue operating GASROE, his non-profit organization, as he had done through the sheriff’s office.

Now Georgia was also told the current Habersham County Schools public-safety structure may be unusual — and potentially unique in Georgia — because it combines a school police chief with one officer and a safety program with school resource officers supplied by the sheriff’s office and municipal agencies. Critics of the arrangement say it creates overlapping layers of law enforcement administration, raises questions about whether taxpayers are funding duplicative services and highlights possible incident response issues.

Search for documents

Still, the department’s foundational paperwork remains elusive.

When Now Georgia asked school records custodian Angela Robinson for documents showing the department’s creation, she responded vaguely, saying, “The police department was created in the early 2000s.” She could not produce a police ORI (agency identification number) and, instead, provided a non-law-enforcement number used for fingerprinting school employees. When asked for their police department charter, Robinson replied, “Not sure what you want here.”

POST Records Custodian Jill Dalon later told Now Georgia the agency has no charter establishing the Habersham County School Board Police Department on file.

The GBI raised another issue. Senior Manager Cheryl Savage wrote: “Since we don’t have an ORI for that agency [Habersham County Schools Board of Education Police], we wouldn’t have an audit under that agency name.” That conflicts with what Cooper told Now Georgia in 2023, when he said the department still existed “on paper at POST” and would resume operations using its old ORI.

Current records also show the school system contracts with the sheriff’s office, Baldwin Police and Demorest Police for school resource officers. The three municipal chiefs told Now Georgia they could point to their city charters or city council action establishing their agencies. Even among Georgia’s 10 largest school systems, Savannah-Chatham Public Schools has a school charter that Major Robert Rodriguez said is also readily inspectable. The Habersham County School Board can not point to a single piece of paperwork showing the same.

That disturbs Stallings-Wood, who said her questions began after reading about the school police controversies on Now Georgia and grew as she began searching for the same records. She said school administrators told her the system had digitized its documents, which should have made it easier to search for past charters, agendas, minutes, and other official paperwork.

Stallings-Wood arranged a meeting with School Superintendent Patrick Franklin and Assistant Superintendent David Leenman to discuss the matter. She says she was “blindsided” when they invited Kogod to attend the meeting without her knowledge. Having previously met with Kogod, she declined to meet with the three of them.

“It’s funny that last year another parent wanted to come with me to a meeting and Mr. Franklin refused to let her because she was not in our email chain. Funny how he can now invite others to attend without my knowledge,” Stallings-Wood wrote.

No proof of legal authority

Now Georgia made one final records request for the charter, board minutes authorizing officers to carry firearms, 2013 dissolution records, and any charter documents submitted to POST. The school district’s attorneys estimated it would take 80 hours at $24.99 per hour to search, retrieve, and redact the material — $1,999.20 — and said the work would move forward after Now Georgia agreed to pay.

With no guarantee that such a search would produce results beyond the already fruitless searches conducted, Now Georgia opted not to proceed. The demand for payment leaves open the obvious question of why it should be so costly for a legally authorized police department to produce the documents that establish its authority. Particularly if those documents had been digitized.

At this point, the school system has failed to produce any valid, retrievable, or verifiable documentation as to how and when Habersham County Schools established, disbanded, and reactivated its police department.

Police Chief Kogod and Superintendent Patrick Franklin have not responded to Now Georgia’s repeated questions about the department’s operations.