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Local law enforcement beef up school presence.

In a continued effort to keep kids safe, local law enforcement is making some changes to help improve police presence in and around Harrisburg schools.

"We have always tried to put someone in the school once a week," said Harrisburg police Chief Whipper Johnson. "Just go and hang out for 10 to 15 minutes and let the students know we are there."

Johnson says that officers make it a point during their day to go out to the middle school, high school, and grade schools at different times during the week to keep up police presence with the students.

According to Johnson, due to the budget and lack of funds to pay for overtime, police presence has seen a dip in the last couple of years at different events around Harrisburg.

"They don't want us at the fair, we weren't at the lights parade, the home coming parade or the fireworks this year," said Johnson. "Our budget is tight, we went into the red last month."

With the decrease in funds, the fact that local law enforcement take time out of their shift to spend time with the youth speaks volumes.

"Several years ago we started asking police to come by pretty regularly due to the school shooting scare," said John Crabb, Principal of Harrisburg's middle school. "Then when the gun scare was over, the police just kept stopping by from time to time."

Crabb and Assistant Principle Gabe Angelly both said that the officers are very much appreciated.

On Tuesday, a small altercation between two students at the middle school took place during one of the school's lunch hours.

"If we do have fights, we call them (police) when necessary," Angelly said.

Fights between students, though rare, do happen and both Angelly and Crabb are confident that instances are few and far between.

"In my 11 years here at the school we rarely see face to face altercations," Crabb said. "Altercations on Facebook and texting are the much bigger issue."

Due to the most recent altercation, Chief Johnson will now be more strategic as to when he sends his officers to the school.

Electing to have them there during the lunch periods, a time when the students have more interaction with one another.

"Several of our officers have children at the schools," said Johnson "We want to assure parents that their children are part of a safe environment."