Round Rock ISD Superintendent Steve Flores, Ph.D., announced Friday that Jeffrey D. Yarbrough has been selected to lead the District’s newly established police department as its first Chief of Police.
Yarbrough has served Round Rock ISD as the Executive Director of Safety and Security since 2019. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating security for all campus and District events and served as the liaison between the District and law enforcement agencies in emergencies, ongoing training and security issues, and the School Resource Officer program, currently staffed by officers from the Round Rock Police Department, Williamson County Sheriff’s Office and the Austin Community College Police Department.
Before coming to Round Rock ISD, Yarbrough served as the Chief Operations Officer and Chief of Police for Bastrop ISD. He has also served as an investigator in the Public Integrity Unit for the Travis County District Attorney’s Office, a senior investigator for the State Bar of Texas, and Assistant City Manager and Chief of Police for the City of Tulia. A veteran of the U.S. Army, he served in the 101st Airborne Division and was a Distinguished Honor Graduate of the Advanced Training Program.
Yarbrough holds a master’s degree from Texas A&M University and a bachelor’s degree from The University of Texas at Brownsville.
“I am truly humbled to be selected as the inaugural police chief of Round Rock ISD,” Yarbrough said. “I appreciate the comprehensiveness and care of the selection processes because it was one of the most rigorous that I have participated in my career. I genuinely care about Round Rock ISD, and I value the relationships I have built with students and staff as well as with community members and community groups. I am committed to strengthening those relationships by being open and transparent. I will continue to build community confidence by creating a department that embraces student advocacy, champions equity and diversity, and promotes behavioral health as strategies to dismantle the school to prison pipeline.”
As police chief, Yarbrough will oversee the transition plan for hiring and onboarding new Round Rock ISD Police officers and transitioning out current SROs to ensure the District is fully staffed and prepared to provide the highest quality of service as the District’s contracts with existing law enforcement partners come to an end. He will also provide oversight to ensure District police officers receive training in areas related to the District’s vision and mission for the new Round Rock ISD Police Department, school-based law enforcement, restorative practices, behavioral health practices and implicit bias. The department’s training and considerations were built on many of the recommendations developed by Round Rock ISD’s Safety & Security Task Force, which was charged with exploring safety and security options and consisted of community members representing various areas of the Round Rock community.
Yarbrough will also work with the Superintendent to further establish practices, professional development and procedures that will allow the District to create further consistency in how student situations and disciplinary procedures are handled.
“Jeffrey Yarbrough brings the experience, knowledge, skills and passion needed to take on the position of the police chief and the important role of helping establish the practices and procedures needed to ensure equity, safety and security are the focus of the development and establishment of the Round Rock ISD Police Department,” Flores said. “This role will be critical to how we serve our students and our staff, and I am confident he will do an outstanding job that will meet the expectations our community demands of Round Rock ISD.”
