More than just being campus safety officers, SROs are also trained to be educators and
counselors. But what's their role in regard to
transportation?
To Protect and to Serve A
WRITTEN BY ART GISSENDANER
few years ago, a small caravan of school buses from a neighboring school district was traveling on the interstate through Hoover,
Ala., just outside of Birmingham, where Mo Canady was working as a school resource officer (SRO), or trained campus police officer. A chain-reaction, rear-end colli-
sion occurred involving several school buses. Some students suffered minor injuries, and none of the buses could be moved until the accident investi- gation was completed. Officials were faced with the dilemma of getting several busloads of students to safety
42 School Transportation News January 2014
without any modes available to get them there. Te traffic officers investigating
the accident notified an SRO at one of Hoover’s high schools. Te SRO then contacted the school’s trans- portation department and arranged for several buses to be dispatched to transport the stranded students to a safe location. School bus drivers are normally
viewed as shepherds of students while on their routes, while the im- mediate impact of the SRO usually ends at the campus boundary. But in this case it was the SRO making a cameo appearance amid circum- stances that are virtual rarities in
NATIONAL OFFICIALS SAY THE RESPONSIBILITY OF SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS SHOULD EXTEND FROM SCHOOL GROUNDS TO STUDENT TRANSPORTATION
education — SROs working with a transportation department and local law enforcement to remedy an emer- gency situation on multiple school buses off campus. “Tat’s just an example of how the
SRO might come into play in certain situations,” said Canady, now the executive director for the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO). He added that emergency response training involv- ing SROs and student transporters is a collaboration he would like to see occur more often. “(SROs) should be very involved in emergency training for school buses because they have a vested in-
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