The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Resource officers aim to have positive impact
Proposed state legislation would define qualifications to serve in position
Chardon Police officer Mike Shaw stands in the doorway to his office at Chardon High School, greeting students as they pass him in the hallway following the freshman orientation.
The students stop to say hello, laugh and joke with him. Many know Shaw from either seeing him on duty in their community or by having had their older siblings in the school during previous years, Those who aren’t already familiar with him get to know who he is.
Although, he may be a police officer when he is out in the community, at Chardon High he is also a school resource officer, stationed at the school not only as crime deterrent but also to keep the students safe.
Building relationships
Schools around the country are starting to use SROs not just for protection but also as a way to strengthen the connections between the schools, the students and the communities.
According to Shaw, when students come to him to talk or for assistance, that is the beginning of knocking down the barriers between kids
and the police department.
A recent graduate of Chardon High School, Laina Barajas, said it made her feel better to have him there.
“He’s the one you could joke around with, when I had a bad day he would make me laugh, make me feel better,” she said. “I felt like I could go to him with anything.”
High schools such as Chardon, Euclid and North view their SROs not just as officers but as a resource for students to utilize.
“Students come to me with school projects, especially those they have to do with law enforcement,” Shaw said. “I am used in the classroom by the teachers especially with the drugs and heroin. Education is a key to helping them understand how the kids can go from student to addict.”
SRO Jack Skelly at Mentor High School said he has students come to him with problems, looking for help with school projects and even with questions on preparing for their driver’s exam.
Steve Shubert, SRO at Euclid High School, feels the biggest benefit to him being in the school is the relationships he builds with the teenagers while he talks with them and finds out what is going on in their lives.
Shubert also steps in and teaches in the classrooms and acts as an informal counselor when students need to talk. With his sports background he is also involved with the football and basketball teams.
“I will not miss a football game or basketball game,” he said. “I want to see these kids succeed.”
Eastlake Police Chief Larry Reik ,who spent eight years at North High School, feels that being at the school five to six hours a day made him more approachable. The kids were more apt to have a connection with him as they felt comfortable coming up and talking to him about becoming a police officer, an issue a friend was dealing with or a problem they had.
Reik, Shubert and Shaw all agree being in the schools with the students not only makes for safer schools but also helps in the communities.
According to Reik, when an incident happens at the school, the school does not have to make calls and explain to dispatch what is happening. They are able to deal with intermediate incidents before or when they occur.
“Now with cyber bullying, curse language and things going viral, we work with the schools to set up no-contact agreements and can use those in prosecution if needed,” Reik said.
Shaw has noticed that over the summer when he is back on road patrol, if he responds to a call where a child he knows is involved the child is more likely to talk to him over another officer because a relationship already is developed.
“When I respond to a call and it’s kids I have had interactions with they will feel more comfortable talking to me,” Shubert said. “When you come up to a child and address him by first name, ‘Hey Michael how are you doing,’ it immediately changes the dynamics of police interaction.”
Defining an SRO
Although many schools across the country employ SRO’s there is not a set standard or definition as to what such an officer does or the kind of training required to be one, said Tim Armelli, a Chardon High School teacher and football coach.
State Rep. John Patterson, D-Jefferson, and state Rep Sarah LaTourette, R-Chester Township, along with nine cosponsors including Rep. John Rogers, D-Mentoron-the-Lake, recently introduced H.B. 318 to amend the Ohio Revised Code to define the necessary qualifications and responsibilities of SROs.
“We have been working on this for nearly a year now to help first define what a school resource officer is,” Patterson said. “The ORC is silent, it’s not mentioned at all. So, before you can talk about something you have to define it.”
In addition to defining the SRO, Patterson is looking to establish a standardize training for them as their roles are different that of a typical beat officer.
Armelli equates an officer without SRO training to that of a gym teacher teaching math.
Patterson said he has worked with not only Ohio School Resource Officers Association but with the national association and various law enforcement agencies and school organizations to make sure are all interested parties were on board. According to Patterson everyone has agreed to what was presented, and he is anticipating the first hearing on this bill to occur fall and passage of it by fall 2018.
“Because, in the final analysis, our mission is to protect our children the best we can,” he said.
Lessons from Chardon
On Feb. 27, 2012, T.J. Lane opened fire at Chardon High school, killing three and injuring three others.
One of the responses to that incident was the creation of the Coach Hall Foundation, named for former Chardon Coach Frank Hall who chased Lane out of the building that day. The Coach Hall Foundation is now working to put an SRO in every school in the state and then the country. Hall said the effort stemmed from the Chardon High School shooting, but it is also tied to the opiate crisis.
“To have an officer in the school addressing things from drug abuse to prevention to suicide to child psychology is an asset,” Hall said.
Armelli believes 99 percent of schools will never have a school shooting, but there are going to be other issues kids will need to get through during their high school careers that an officer can help them with.
Funding for SROs can be problematic for some district, but passage of this bill will make it easier for grant money to be used, according to Patterson.
“Schools will hire five to six custodians, we are only asking for one SRO,” he said. “If we can find the money to keep our schools clean we can find the money to keep them safe.”
According to Armelli, approximately a year ago Ohio began allowing safety levies. These levies are usually smaller than the typical levies because they can only be used for school safety projects and programs.
“We protect our hospitals and our malls,” Hall said. “For us to say we are not going to protect our schools doesn’t make sense to me.”
During the Feb. 27, 2012 shooting at Chardon High school six kids were shot, three of them killed.
Armelli questions if an SRO had been at the school that morning if things would have been different.
“Our shooting, had there been an SRO there before, could it have been prevented? We will never know,” he said. “Maybe it could have stopped Columbine. If an SRO had been present they might not have lost 12 students and a teacher.”
“To have an officer in the school addressing things from drug abuse to prevention to suicide to child psychology is an asset.” — Former Chardon Coach Frank Hall