Rapport
between SROs and students is essential, said Mo Canady of the National Association of School Resource Officers.
resource) officers that way,” he said. “Mo and I discussed trying to build those bridges and get something like that going, trying to do some coordi- nated training with bus drivers.”
WHO ARE SROS? SROs are viewed both as a
welcome addition to the educational process and as part of an evil empire out to criminalize it. SROs can be compared to a fulcrum that balances various elements of the school envi- ronment in order to leverage a safe, productive educational experience for students. And they have been trained to do so for the past 60 years. According to a special NASRO
Report, “To Protect & Educate,” co-authored by Canady, the first SRO program began in 1953 in Flint, Mich. By 1968, the SROs spread to Fresno, Calif. Growing slowly initially, the program’s rapid
growth in the 1990s largely resulted from about 15 tragic school shoot- ings that occurred from 1993 to 1999, including Columbine. SROs at the K-12 level are currently experi- encing a growth spurt as a result of the recent spate of shootings, begin- ning with Sandy Hook Elementary School more than a year ago. Tis spurt has been fueled by the
increased availability of federal funds for school safety through federal Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Program grants. In 2013, 144 agencies received nearly $46.5 million to fund 370 additional SRO positions. Canady estimated the total number of SROs nationwide has increased from about 10,000 to about 15,000 since Sandy Hook. He said NASRO training classes more than doubled in size, increasing from 700 to 2,000 during the past year.
Because NASRO offers training to non-law enforcement officers, the entire increase in class size could not be attributed totally to SROs.
TRAINING TO THE TRIAD CONCEPT
Not every law enforcement officer is suited to be an SRO. Tese are not your average police officers but, in ef- fect, career educators who are trained to assume three essential roles in the school environment. Tis is called the Triad Concept. “First, they are law enforcement
officers,” said NASRO Training Director Kerri Williamson. “Tey are also in the school system to be educators and informal counselors.” For example, Williamson said,
SROs could expect to lecture on law-related educational topics such as crime statistics in a math class or crime-scene forensics in a science
“Over the years I have realized that you have to get to know and work with your bus drivers because a third of the kids ride school buses. That’s a huge chunk of our school population, and they need to be safe as well.”
— NASRO President Kevin Quinn 44 School Transportation News January 2014
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