Dakota Times

District 196 Superintendent Mary Kreger announced the hiring of Reshard Saulter to be the district’s next school safety and climate coordinator.

Saulter was most recently the dean of students at Faribault Middle School. Prior to that, he has 20 years of experience as a police officer in Florida and Texas, and also worked for the Rosemount Police Department for one year in 2021 before making a career change to education last December. Saulter also served as a paralegal in the U.S. Army Reserves for 10 years while working for the police department in Temple, Texas from 2005 to 2018.

Saulter will fill the position previously held by Mary Thompson, a former Rosemount Middle School principal who served as the district’s first school safety and climate coordinator until she retired earlier this year. The position was added in 2018 in response to growing concerns about school safety and added responsibilities for overseeing security equipment and systems that were added to all schools in the district as part of the last bond referendum in 2015. In addition, Saulter will be responsible for regularly reviewing and updating the district’s emergency procedures, coordinating school safety drills with local police departments, training staff on bullying response and prevention, and assisting schools with  student social/emotional support models. He will also be a member of the district’s emergency team along with district and school administrators, and members of local police departments who serve as school resource officers in the district’s middle schools and high schools.

“My whole career has been about protecting and serving by building relationships with people,” said Saulter, who lives in Rosemount and has children attending District 196 schools. “I look forward to this opportunity to build on strong partnerships with police, health and other local organizations to keep our schools among the best and safest places for our children to be.”

Saulter has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Minnesota, Morris, and earned his master’s degree in education leadership from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va. 

_{Source: https://dr.district196.org/families/news/article/~board/district-news/post/district-196-hires-former-police-officer-to-be-next-school-safety-coordinator}