EVERGREEN, Colo. (KDVR) The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office says a full-time school resource officer will be assigned to Evergreen High School when students return to that campus after a school shooting there.

The Evergreen Parent-Teachers-Students Association had been hoping for a full-time officer.

“I understand they may not be able to prevent a tragedy, but we need to have some deterrents in place. We need to have somebody that can act who is trained to act in order to minimize any sort of event like this. That’s really what we are looking for,” Evergreen PTSA President Cindy Mazeika said.

When the shooting happened last week, there was a part-time SRO assigned to the school. But a Jefferson County Sheriff’s spokesperson said that the deputy had left the school before the shooting to answer another call. The deputy had followed protocol, according to the sheriff’s office.

Mazeika says there should have been an officer in the school. affiliate KDVR asked the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for details on how SRO policies are regulated. The department shared the intergovernmental agreement between Jeffco Public Schools and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office for school resource officers.

One part of the document says, “The JCSO may, from time to time, and at its sole discretion, reassign its employees and designate one or more replacement SROs or SRO Supervisors at any time.”

KDVR spoke to a former SRO who stressed the need for full-time resource officers. That school resource officer, Stacey Collis, runs a company based in Colorado called 2020 Safe Schools.

“It is a deterrent. You have a patrol car, usually marked, parked in front of the school. You are uniform a majority of the time.  That mere presence is something that will stop things from happening before it goes too far,” Collis said.

Evergreen’s PTSA says it still wants more details about the incoming SRO and their duties.

For now, though, the group continues to work on raising money to help make sure students, teachers and staff have what they need in the days to come. The organization says it will be posting more information on more specific needs on its website  ehsptsa.nationbuilder.com.

In the meantime, Jeffco Public Schools told KDVR that district leadership is working on a plan to return to learning and will have that finalized later in the week.