by Ry Rivard
Charleston Daily Mail
CHARLESTON
October 10, 2008 11:53 am
—
Over the past decade, a program to put police officers in schools has expanded to a third of the state's high schools and is moving into middle schools.
The state's 54 prevention resources officers counsel, teach and patrol. They watch for speeders. They keep an eye out for smokers. They walk around the cafeteria. They sort through gossip.
"It's made me feel proactive again in my law enforcement career. It's made me feel more useful," said Sgt. Donald Miller, the prevention resource officer at Bridge Street Middle School in Wheeling.
At first, students don't know how to take the officers - who are in full uniform with a gun and handcuffs.
And there are other reasons to fear: Smoking citations and other disciplinary measures increase when the officers first come in, though they eventually decline.
Other times, the students and the officers may already have some history.
"I've arrested quite a few of their parents, to tell you the truth," said Sgt. E.A. Baker, 34, who patrols the halls of the new Lincoln County High School in Hamlin.
But cracking down isn't the only reason that the officers are in the schools.
In interviews with a half-dozen school officers from around the state, the officers say that students, at first weary of them, gradually come to trust them. Eventually, the officers are able to give students a perspective that they may not get, of real-world consequences and of life of as an adult.
Corp. Monica Spriggs, the first school officer in Kanawha County, tells students at Stonewall Jackson Middle School about the time she was homeless and how if she can be successful, they can, too.
"I tell them that if their home life is bad, the best thing they can do it to stay in school," she said.
Like her fellow officers, she teaches classes in the school. In one Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., class, three of the students' mothers were going to jail for doing meth.
"Schools are safe havens," Spriggs said.
Baker said that, in Lincoln County, it's difficult for some students to dig themselves out of a hole.
Sometimes, their families don't help.
"Unfortunately it's a vicious habit - the grandparents were bad, the parents were bad, and now the kids," Baker said.
Other times, it's the school itself.
Baker said the new high school provided a lot more opportunities than when he was in school.
"It gives everybody the opportunity to succeed and not just the college students," he said.
At the beginning of the year, Baker spent a lot of time breaking up fights - 10 or 20 of them in the first couple weeks.
Then he and a school counselor held assemblies for students.
"I explained to them that threatening someone in the actual real world was assault," he said, "and that physical altercations were battery."
Since then, he's only broken up three fights.
The money to keep the officers in schools comes from a combination of federal and county money.
The officers walk a fine line in schools, said Leslie Boggess, the associate deputy director of the state division of criminal justice services.
Boggess, who works closely with the program, said that officers can't search lockers without probable cause and they are there to keep students safe, not get them in trouble.
Still, when they first arrive, tobacco citations will increase. Normally an officer would have to be called out to a school to issue a citation, something most principals wouldn't do, but now they are already there.
"I'm not just here to walk around and be the security and take them all to jail," said Dept. Jeff Roy.
The students at Phillip Barbour High School in Phillipi come into Roy's office to joke around. And, to prevent fights, he helps sort out rumors.
Someone will say, 'Sara said she was dating Tommy and I've been dating Tommy for six months now,' he said. Then he tires to figure out what really happened.
It seems small, but if gossip goes through the weekend - festered by phone calls, text messages and chats on instant messenger services - by the time students come back to school they are upset about whether Sara said she was dating Tommy or not.
"It starts with the rumors, then bullying, then the fight," Roy said. "And I try to catch it at the rumors."
Like many school officers, he goes to extracurricular activities. Yes, he often wears his uniform and keeps watch, but it's more than that.
"I know there's a couple of kids out there, nobody's ever been to their ball games," Roy said."I want them to turn around and see, 'Hey, he's here.'"
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