Last night I received a Facebook message, asking me about school resource officers. At the time I had not heard about the recent incident at Oak View school. I answered this question from my own personal experience.
I am posting this here now so that I can inform stakeholders of my position on school resource officers.
I appreciate your question about the SRO. I'm concerned about school violence too. I really worry about my son. If there is an act of violence is he more likely to be killed because he doesn't understand the police officer commands or can't be quiet during an active shooter situation. It literally makes me sick. I worked on the street in Highland Park, Illinois where the shooting happened on the 4th of July. I'm worried too.
I can empathize with your anger and frustration around a lack of communication on this issue.
I don't have all the answers so I am going to give you my personal experience and tell you I'm always looking to learn more. I've worked in four different schools in my career. Two as an associate and two as a teacher. Three of the four schools had an SRO. The role of the SRO looked very different in each of the three schools that had them. I saw a lot of positives from having an SRO on campus. In two of the schools, the SRO has specialized training in education (in Illinois) and worked in tandem with the school to build relationships with the students. The SRO took a part in teaching web/internet safety, drug prevention and general civics. This was really effective when building a relationship with the students and community stakeholders.
I'm not opposed to using SROs in our DCG schools. I did have the opportunity to ask Superintendent Grimes about an SRO when I was a part of DCG Kids Safety. I learned that there are some logistical considerations when looking to implement an SRO within DCG. One of the many factors to consider is the fact that our district covers two counties. This would require increased coordination with both Polk and Dallas County Sheriffs' Offices. Another concern was funding. I'd want to learn more about this and dive into the data/numbers to see how it would work. SROs seem like one of many options to consider to ensure that our students are safe while attending schools.
Additional Questions
Since learning of the incident at Oak View, I now have additional questions. How can we make all of our schools safer for students? Would school resource officers only be available at intermediate and high school levels? How much do school resource officers cost? What sort of training will go into place in order to work collaboratively with teachers and SROs to defuse potentially violent situations?
School safety is on all our minds. My heart goes out to the parents of all of our Oak View students. I can only imagine how you felt when you saw increased police presence at our school. I can empathize with your anger and frustration around a lack of communication on this issue. I wish I could snap my fingers and make the violence all go away. This is another example of monumental work that needs to be done in order to ensure that all of our students feel safe in our schools.