For safer schools, resource officers focus on building trust
Dear Readers,
With many schools across the country already in session or about to start, educators are busy setting priorities for the year. Even before the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, last weekend, the safety of students was top among them.
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Judging by this week鈥檚 news that the sale of听, it鈥檚 also on the minds of parents. Data was also released last month that suggests that听.
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Among the less flashy, but important, approaches to school safety is that of students having trusted adults to turn to with concerns. Some districts are adapting the role of school resource officers to help with that.
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That idea came up earlier this year at the national meeting of the Education Writers Association. On one panel, Akil Hamm, the chief of police for Baltimore City Public Schools, described how the city鈥檚 approach has changed in recent years. The SROs are thought of as positive role models, being assigned to schools where they themselves attended, for example, and taking on mentoring roles.
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鈥淲hen you do that, kids come to us. They tell us, 鈥楬ey, so-and-so has a gun.鈥� 鈥楾here鈥檚 going to be a fight at this place, at this time.鈥� 鈥楾his person is posting stuff on social media,鈥欌�澨�. 鈥淲hen you have a relationship with kids and they trust you, they want to tell you.鈥�
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Elsewhere, Congress is reportedly looking into new school safety measures in the wake of the recent shootings, and districts are continuing to refine their approaches as the academic year kicks off. We will be keeping an eye on the developments.
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Kim Campbell,听culture听and education editor听
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Why We Wrote This
School resource officers are increasingly seen as positive role models, being assigned to schools where they themselves attended, for example, and taking on mentoring roles.
