Letter: In response to school resource officer editorial

Posted 3/1/18

To the editor:

I appreciate your editorial . School safety is something on all our minds each day when we drop our children to school or send them off on buses. I think though that we need to be …

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Letter: In response to school resource officer editorial

Posted

To the editor:

I appreciate your editorial. School safety is something on all our minds each day when we drop our children to school or send them off on buses. I think though that we need to be clear on what we are talking about when we ask for one full-time resource office. A school resource officer is not necessarily the same as, nor was it presented as, a police officer guarding the schools for safety. Yes, the resource officer is a police officer, but the current role is much broader than safety.

My understanding of the school resource officer (SRO), is just that, a resource. He goes between schools, though is primarily at BHS, and gives talks on things like cyber bullying and other relevant topics. He has handled some behavior issues, like truancy, missing cell phones, and the like. Issues that the principals and assistant principals often deal with on their own, which I imagine is very challenging. 

The staff and students did say he’s a “great guy”, and having an extra resource in the schools is something that is nice to have, but when asked for data by the school committee showing effectiveness, the district did not have data to support additional hours. There may be a valid need for more hours. I am just stating that data supporting the request wasn’t provided which is why the school committee asked for it to be removed.  

From your editorial, it seems that there may be confusion over the current role of the SRO and a potential role focused only on safety. If we are now talking about police officers in schools for safety in the event of an active shooter, that is a different, and very important conversation. One that we need to have as a community. To alter the focus to school safety, police officers would need to be present at entrances, patrol hallways and grounds, be present at each school, each day.

If we feel we need police at every school to keep our children safe, then the district would need to fund six full time resource officers (approximately $600,000) with a focus on school safety. I don’t have enough information to know if that is the right decision for our schools, so I am not advocating for or against that decision, just noting it is a larger discussion point then just adding a few more days to the current resource officers position.

But make no mistake, as much as the parent in us may feel this will protect our children, and as much as many of us would feel better dropping our children to school each day with a police officer present, the truth is that our children are much more likely to die due to issues like drowsy driving, texting and driving, and suicide. We have lost children to suicide in recent years, without much community response. Our school counselors are overwhelmed with student mental health needs. 

One officer isn’t going to cut it if our aim is the safety of our children. We need a multilayered plan, community engagement, and many more resources for our schools if we want to do more than a token position to give us a false sense of security.

Maura McCrann

Barrington

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Jim McGaw

A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.