I had a great interview with a local public school district as a school resource officer today, background is being conducted now that i passed the initial with the chief of the dept.

Anyone on the board is, know anyone or worked school duties?
My beat from i was told would consist of 4 schools.

So what are the good and bad?

Where I am, Norfolk VA, the SROs are assigned by the local PD, and they generally have one school.

I am a retired police officer turned public school administrator.

My own observation is that a SRO has an entirely different experience than a street officer, there is much more "counseling" and giving of advice, actually very similar to what we did when I first started walking a beat.

Depending on the school there may be a great deal of drama, from teachers, students and parents.

Good luck

local pd had it until sandy hook incident, and then the dist. wanted to branch off and form their own dept.

That's really interesting.  What was their thinking?

 

I was told it was to get more officers,which resulted in two additional officers.
Working for various govts. for the past 15 years, i know they love growth. Most likely Having a seperate dept under the school board results in the district having almost all control in how things are run.

I'm an SRO and have three schools, all middle schools (K-8), I love it. Harassing the kids, they harass right back. Going to the basketball, volleyball, etc.. games lets them know you actually care. Our dept does 3 year rotations. This my last year
I get free lunch if I eat with the kids, it's not always good but they love you sitting with them.
Only thing I hate is going to some of the houses and dealing with some of the parents.

If my department made me an SRO, I'd be on Death Row within a week.
 

Our SRO just got their leg broken during  a fight in the common area of the HS. They are not going to return to that duty post, not that anyone can blame them. I guess surgery, a steel plate and a couple of wood screws will do that to you.

Here SROs are generally officers within 10 years of retirement, the get to work normal hours, no holidays, get long breaks for winter and spring, the work in the summer regular beats, but only 15 days a month and because of seniority they get to pick which ones. Some seem to love it and will do it for 8-10 years others hate it and return to regular duty within a year or two.

If mine did I'd turn my badge in. That's where they put the guys that have no business on the street.

 

Being a SRO has it's benefits, usually Mon-Fri and day shift. It's a position that can be used to obtain a wealth of information regarding gang activity or other crime that will or has occurred.  A good SRO can assist in identifying students and provide valuable information to the other Divisions.  Unfortunately, from my experiences, our guys usually have less then 7yrs who are assigned and don't know names or recognize faces of students that go to the school. Totally useless.
It's not for everyone and certainly not my cup of tea. As previously mentioned, you are more of a counselor and administration don't want any arrests.

I did it in Chicago in middle 2000's. Chicago had a unit 284 called school patrol. Instead of answering 911 calls two on duty Chgo police officers tour of duty was in a chgo public high school. I worked the ghetto the whole time, and at one school i was one of five white people in the school. The thing i liked was straight days with weekends and holidays off. But the kids you had to use extreme discretion dealing with them as the liberal teachers would beef on you if they felt you whern't doing your job the way they wanted/expected you to do.

Very few students respected you or listened to you. Most of the hall room fights, and the after school fights where females fighting over guys. Of course there where drug and weapons arrests. But very little consoling of students as they knew better then you. We didn't sit in the lunch room. As we would tell the Principal would you dial 911 to have officers sit in the lunch room. Also remember that the head engineer is just as much in charge of the school as the principal just in a different way.

Again my 5 years experience came from ghetto Chgo public H.S. In Chgo School Patrol was a "VERY HEAVY" unit, very political, 90% of the people in it where tied to bosses on the job, or politicians. Lots of know it all females with 4 years on the job in the Chgo unit. Also shaky bosses because of the heavy weights assigned to the unit. But again i was only there for the straight days, weekends off, holidays off, and summer furloughs. Hope that helps you out.  

Pretty much this. But the highschools  can be a rowdy crowd occasionally... they pay road officers to work the sporting events etc.

Our school officers were all the do nothings who wanted weekends off.

Our SRO's are usually senior officers with 8-10 years road experience who want a regular schedule. They are assigned a single school and get an office in the school. Not gonna lie, I went in a buddies office and it was about a 20'x20' room that he decorated to his liking. Seemed like a gravy gig. On the flip side the schools want friendlier looking officers. They don't want officers carrying tazers/batons. Kids these days are big. Some of your 16+ year olds will be 6'2+ 240+lbs now. Kinda makes me think its a ticking time bomb till some student gets drugged up and tries to fight an SRO who only has a gun on him and no other options.


And yeah some of them are kind of lazy. At the same time at some of these schools they work pretty hard. Some of them make very frequent arrests for students carrying drugs/weapons.


I'd probably consider the position in a few years.

I'd go fill pot holes before I'd do SRO duty. Kids are like dicks, I don't wanna play with anyone else's but mine.

I work in a suburban school district (middle school special ed math/science) each school level had an SRO, ours works on developing relationships with the students. This helps with any conflict resolution the kids don't know how to handle, gaining intelligence about potential crimes and to just help them from going down the wrong path.

One Bright side to working the schools is that in 6 months time you will be great and handling crowds, and anticipating trouble at any crowded event, you will get the true feel of how crowds react to things, this is a great thing to learn. It will save you a ass whipping in your future, most LEO's never learn good crowd control.



Again me 5 years experience was in Chicago ghetto public H.S. But one other problems was the football players fucking with the lesbian girls in the school, you have to tell the jock's in private to leave the dykes alone. I use to bullshit them with "sexual harassment" and a hate crime. The jocks where treated way different then the general school students, as sports were their way out of the ghetto. If there are gangs hope you only have one gang in the school you will have way less gang problems. My first school had 3 different street gangs in it with 500 students, and i made 218 arrests in that school that first year, Black stones, Gangster disciples, and Black Disciples. A fucking mad house.

But for me, i had 20 years on the job and straight days, weekends off, holidays off, and summer furlough made it worth be in the unit. The other thing that was a pain in the ass was when the stundents would fight by their homes at night and the beat officers that responded would blow off the arrest, or report and tell the students to go to school and report the crime to me. So i would get stuck making the arrest or report. Like i didn't have enough of my own shit to handle at the school.





 

I couldn't do it. Here in TX, you pretty much can't do anything to those kids anymore. The days of giving them tickets are done with. Everything(unless its a major crime) has to be dealt with administratively. We have a couple of SROs in our department and believe me, those officers are the folks that don't like to do police work.