School Resource officer
If you have information concerning abuse, misconduct or drug activity in your school, submit the the information to the SRO directly and anonymously.
The Grant County Sheriff’s Office has three School Resource Officers (SRO). One SRO is located at Williamstown Schools, a second is located at the Grant County High School, and the 3rd is located at the Grant County Middle School, however they do provide service for all other Grant County Schools.
It seems most of the public has the perception that a school resource officer is merely a police officer working patrol division who was up-rooted one day and placed in the school environment. In fact, the ideal police officer to be based in school is a specially trained, self motivated individual having several years of police experience and has demonstrated the ability to effectively engage the public. The officer should be of outstanding moral character, a good public speaker and have a wide variety of law enforcement training and experience. Certainly the School Resource Officer should enjoy our youth.
Our School Resource Officers (SRO) perform the lion’s share of the necessary law enforcement function on campus. This function includes proactive crime prevention, conducting criminal investigations, making arrests when necessary, developing intervention strategies and crisis planning. Since the advent of the Safe Schools Act, the SRO is the recipient of mandated reporting by schools.
The SRO works closely with the building administrator.
The SRO assists the classroom teacher by being an authoritative resource on law enforcement specific, and related, topics. The SRO develops and delivers a variety of lesson plans.
These lesson plans cover generic law enforcement related topics such as “Search and Seizure”, “Miranda” and “Law Enforcement as a Career. Based on the needs of the environment, the SRO may develop and deliver specialized lesson plans such as “Date Rape, Sexual Assault and Sexual Predation by Drug”, “Rights verses Responsibilities of a Citizen”, “Effects of Alcohol and Commonly Abused Drugs”, “First Aid and CPR” and others.
Unsurprisingly, the action of building relationships with students, faculty, staff, administrators and parents is perhaps the single most important activity engaging the SRO. The quality of trust generated by relationships any officer develops on the “beat” are directly proportionate to their success. This is particularly true with the SRO. Positive relationships yield great results in the solvability of criminal acts, the prevention of crime, successful drug interventions, drug interdictions and the ability to effectively address non-criminal student needs. The SRO has a close relationship with the school counselor(s), social worker(s) and/or psychologist(s). The successful SRO works during the normal school day as well as during co-curricular events. The SRO is instrumental in providing a safe environment conducive to the learning process. Students and faculty have a heightened perception of safety due to the work of the SRO. The SRO strives to improve the “working” environment for students, administrators, faculty, custodians, food service workers and others. The School Resource Officer functions as the “Chief of Police” of the school, a mentor, a positive role model and a friend.
