Farmington Feed: School Resource Officer (SRO)
This is the Farmington Feed, bringing you information from the city of Farmington.
Caryn:Hi, and welcome back to the Farmington Feed. I'm Caryn Hojnicki, the city's communications specialist, and I'm hungry for another episode of the feed. We have two new guests with us today. We'll be talking about our school resource officer, Officer Pete, and Farmington Area School District superintendent Jason Berg. Welcome, guys.
Jason:Hi. Thanks for having us.
Caryn:Yeah. Hello. You're both new to this feed, that's exciting. I love having new guests on. So my first question is when did this all start?
Caryn:When did they start having a school resource officer in the schools?
Jason:It's been quite a long time. I mean, at least probably ten years. I think back to my time as a teacher and then as an administrator. At one point in time, we had an SRO in the high school and both of the middle schools. And then through budget reductions, we reduced to one in the middle school, one in the high school.
Jason:And now we just kind of have Pete who is our SRO for the entire district. He's always at the high school, but he does an awesome job of getting dollar buildings. We we got to spend some time at National Night Out, and it's pretty amazing at how many of the elementary kids recognized him as SRO and things like that, which is a great indication of how active he is in our buildings.
Caryn:Oh, for sure. I mean, I remember back in school, we didn't have SRO. We we just had, like, a security guard watching the parking lots and hallways and stuff, and now this is, like, legit. I know that you are mainly out of high school, he just said, but what do you say is the time amount that you spend at each building? If you if you could take a guess.
Pete:I wish I could give you a minute by minute, but I can't It all depends on, you know, what the day is. There there are weeks where all I get to do is write reports and talk to kids as much as I can. And there are weeks where maybe it's a little slower, and I have the ability and the the I I just have time to stop by buildings and just spend time with kids. I'm obviously at the high school every day.
Pete:I really try to stop by each middle school
Caryn:Mhmm.
Pete:Once a day. That doesn't always happen just with other stuff going on. And then I try to get to each elementary school once a week.
Caryn:Okay. That's a lot. And then have to and then you probably have some duties back at the PD as well.
Pete:I do. I I there are some times when I get assigned, juvenile cases that might not specifically have anything to do with the school, but because of the situation that I'm in or the the position I'm in that just makes sense for me to investigate.
Caryn:Oh, for sure. Mhmm. So how long have you been in this role?
Pete:So I've been a police officer for, January will be twenty years. Been with Farmington for fifteen and this is my I'm starting my third school year
Caryn:ok
Pete:a school resource resource officer. Officer.
Caryn:Alright. So we need to do one of those boards for you. How many years you've been in SRO? And what's your favorite subject in school?
Pete:Bring it on. Let's do it. And
Caryn:so, Jason, how long have you been in your role?
Jason:In my current role, so I'm entering kind of my six and a half year as superintendent. So I was an interim and started April, I think of 2020, and then was hired as full time that spring and started the next fall and stuff. But I've been with the district most of my adult career. Started teaching here in 1993, '94 in the old high school when we had about 160 students, taught math.
Caryn:Wow.
Jason:Was gone for a little bit, but then came back and taught math again at the high school and worked up as assistant principal, assistant superintendent now in this job.
Caryn:Awesome. So can you describe a little bit about how you guys have worked together in the past and then maybe talk about how the future is going look?
Jason:Well, I mean, I think, you know, my role in superintendent, it changes a little bit. I don't have the day to day actions with SRO Pete that I had when I was the principal. Mhmm. But, you know, there's things that come Pete's way, especially from a lot of social media stuff.
Caryn:Oh, yeah. I didn't even think about that.
Jason:A lot of things that kids post that they think might be a joke, but we have to take serious. And Pete really acts as that liaison for us to decide, what do we have to do with this? What does the investigation look like? Where are we with things? And then, you know, there's been times where he's been the liaison between our department and the FBI and other things.
Caryn:So Okay.
Jason:Right now for me and Pete, it's a lot of that high level stuff. Andrew Van Dorn just recently became captain, and when I started, he was the SRO.
Caryn:Okay.
Jason:A lot more daily interactions when I was the principal in terms of
Jason:stuff. And again, I think Pete nailed it on the head. Right? A lot of it is interaction with kids, spending time in the hallway, in the lunchroom, and really working on kind of building relationships so that when he does see kids out and about, he can leverage that or sees families or has to go into situations that aren't the greatest, that they recognize somebody in a uniform Mhmm. And can bring some calm to that.
Caryn:Oh, yeah. So what has been the most rewarding part of this position so far?
Pete:You know what? So I've been in here for almost twenty years as a police officer. And I think if you would have asked me when I was in my early to mid twenties about doing the SRO thing
Jason:Mhmm.
Pete:I probably would have said no. At this point in my life, I've got three kids of my own, pretty pretty involved in their, you know, education and sports and coaching and stuff like that. Honestly, I I'm, I'm a people person.
Caryn:Yeah.
Pete:Yes. I I do take an enforcement action or enforcement role sometimes. But I honestly think most of this is is just building relationships with the kids Mhmm. With the staff, with the parents. Mhmm.
Pete:I mean, you deal with small business owners. You deal with just a large group of people from the community. And I think it's a huge position to just go out there and show the community that we are involved in the day to day operations at the school district.
Caryn:Yeah. So And I mean, you're just not just at the schools like you're gonna be at some of the sporting events too. Yeah. And it's not just you. I mean, there's other officers as well.
Pete:Like, I work I work all the football games, the home games simply because not just because it's football, but just simply because of the sheer numbers of people that we have at these events. I mean, I've worked I've worked hockey games. I've worked basketball games. No. I enjoy all of it.
Pete:I I think it's a really important position within the police department.
Caryn:So what do you think is the the number one concern you guys have when school starts? What are what are you what are you thinking about?
Jason:Well, I think for me, we we just got off the summer, so people, you know, aren't used to seeing buses. They're not they they see kids walking, but not kind of in more organized fashion. So my mindset always goes to bus safety, stop arm type things. Yeah. It goes to I run-in the early in the morning and people don't always stop at stop signs and things like that.
Jason:And I think my mind goes to our kids that are walking and things like that, just of drivers being more attentive and more aware that there's going to be more kids out and about at different times and really being cautious, not just around the school zones, but just kind of in general. I mean, we have at the high school, we'll have more kids that are getting their driver's license as the year So goes you have a lot of kids
Caryn:that New drivers.
Jason:Yep. Are out there and things like that. So that's where my safety goes to is really kind of around the transportation sort of things. I mean, we just spent time today with Pete talking about some of our other safety plans and things like that that we put in place that we continue to work on too. Really kind of that piece of kids getting to school, being Our dropped off at school
Jason:parking lots can be dangerous places sometimes. Unfortunately, it's not the kids, it's the adults driving in those parking lots. So beginning the school year, my mind really goes to that.
Caryn:Oh, yeah, I get that. I had a call last year that my kid's bus was hit by a parent driver because my kids go to one stop and they transfer buses and go to another and they the bus hit. So then they had to stop and they all had to get off because it wasn't you couldn't drive the bus anymore.
Jason:And
Pete:It's a big deal.
Caryn:Yeah. So they were late to school, and he's like, oh, okay. Well, as long as everybody's hurt.
Pete:Just kinda to piggyback off of Jason, he he brought up anytime you throw, you know, 2,000 vehicles in a parking lot with a bunch of inexperienced drivers, you're gonna have a couple issues. And I think most of the issues we have are, for the most part, pretty minor. But I think I I agree with Jason and what he said about the parents. Everybody is in a rush. Mhmm.
Pete:And we get that, but you need to be, aware of your surroundings and you need to take a breath and you just when you get into a school parking lot, you need to just slow down and relax a little bit and everybody will hopefully at one point get to where they need to go.
Caryn:For sure. So what about the after school logistics, like extracurricular activities? Does Farmington bus to sports or no?
Jason:Yep, we do bus to sports and stuff. So I mean, that's just another layer ensuring that our kids get to the right locations and things like that. You know, we typically don't have too many issues around that. We're pretty fortunate when you talk about extracurricular activities and Pete talked about, you know, being at some different sport events. Our sporting events have been pretty good in terms of, for the most part, fan behavior and things like that.
Jason:We've been fortunate where we haven't seen any people outside our community come in and cause some issues. But I think when we talk about our safety plans and things like that, that's always kind of on the forefront because people in our community and people that go to our buildings kind of understand our expectations, but you always get some people potentially from outside that that it doesn't hold true for.
Caryn:Yeah, like the fans from the other team sometimes.
Jason:Yeah, the other team, or sometimes you just have people that are looking for big crowds and want to create some havoc.
Caryn:Yeah. And so let's take a football game, for example. What time are you getting there? And what are you what are you what are you doing?
Jason:Game starts seven seven usually.
Pete:So I so I worked my schedule is, 07:30 in the morning till 03:30 in the afternoon.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Pete:On a Friday football, I I'm usually there from 07:30 in the morning until 10 10:30 at night.
Caryn:When the game is over?
Pete:Yeah. When the game is over and I've got stuff to do that I you know, stuff I can accomplish in between the the end of school and the start of the football game. And honestly, like Jason said, we were there have been a couple minor, you know, drinking issues or, you know, for the most part, pretty run of the mill kid stuff. But for the most part, football games have been pretty pretty well behaved. What I'll end up doing is I'll send out a message saying, hey.
Pete:I need a couple of officers that, you know, wanna come in for a couple hours and work the football games. And, honestly, I really enjoy working. I'm, a, I'm a fan of football, but b, it's just you get like I said, you get to see everybody.
Caryn:Cause that's like the highest attended sport. Right?
Jason:Yeah. I mean, it's those have become community events. Right? You have the football game. You have your halftime marching band.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Jason:Right? You know, it's it's it they've really kinda high school has
Jason:kinda turned into college events when it comes to football. You see the big time college, your students dressing up, changing out what the themes are for the games and things like that.
Caryn:Oh yeah, I've seen that. That's kind of fun.
Jason:Yeah, they really spend a lot of time doing that. And there's only four of them, right? So people get really kind of geeked up for those four events. It's usually in the fall when people are excited to be back to the summer and stuff like that. And families are bringing their kids and things.
Jason:I mean, you're talking five, six, seven, eight thousand people at an event. So they're big.
Caryn:And I'm sure they do like a youth night to coincide with the football association.
Jason:Yes. Different nights and things like that. But even when they don't have the nights, they're just highly attended.
Caryn:They are. Okay. Cool. And to follow-up about the buses, Marshall Line is the company that, you know, gets your students to and from school. I know they've implemented some various safety measures on the buses when it comes to the to safety.
Caryn:Do you know any of the recent changes they have made, or how do they get the message out to parents about them?
Jason:Well, mean, they do their bus safety. They do some things like that. One of the things that we partnered with with Marshall Lines is to put cameras in each of the bus. So that's probably the biggest safety feature that's been integrated in the last couple of years. Right?
Jason:You know, sometimes kids forget that how we expect you to behave in a classroom is how we expect you to behave on a bus.
Caryn:Oh, yeah. Those bus drivers.
Jason:Yeah. Bless those bus drivers because they kind of deal with some things. But the videos allowed us to make the investigations a lot easier. It's not the, you know, they said, they said. It's now we can go back and take a look at stuff.
Jason:We have audio
Caryn:Oh, wow.
Jason:Things like that. So we can do a much better job of of ensuring that our kids are living up to our behavior standards, not only in the classroom, but also on the bus.
Caryn:Yeah. And then there are there are cameras outside to the bus as well.
Pete:There are cameras outside which kinda brings me to my next point of like stop arm violations and Oh, yeah. And the general public maybe not paying as much attention as they need to be Mhmm. And passing through one of those stop arms. It it happens more than I care to admit.
Caryn:Yeah.
Pete:And a lot of people might not think it's a it's a big deal.
Caryn:But it is.
Pete:It is. I mean, it it it's the difference between hurting a little one and not hurting a little one.
Caryn:For sure.
Pete:So we we tend to take those pretty seriously at the police department.
Caryn:Mhmm.
Pete:And it it's a it can come with a hefty fine. So
Caryn:Okay.
Pete:We're just encouraging everybody to stay off their phones Yep. And and everything like that and just make sure they're aware of when they're around the school bus.
Caryn:The red lights are on. They're supposed to stop. When the yellow, they're about to stop. Correct?
Pete:Correct.
Caryn:Okay.
Jason:Yeah. I well, sorry to interrupt, but I just I mean, you're gonna save thirty seconds. Right? You're gonna save a minute. It's it's not worth the potential risk that our kids are put at, especially our little kids.
Jason:They work really hard and the bus drivers work really hard to train them about when they cross and stuff like that. Those kids, once they're given the signal to cross, they're feeling like they're protected. And they're not have their head on a swivel like they might on a different intersection or something like that. And if somebody decides they're going to go around that, our kids aren't expecting that. That's probably the most dangerous part of it.
Caryn:Yeah, I mean they go over that in safety camp that Parks and Rec does over the summer and talk up and the bus actually comes here, and they do a whole thing. And yeah, it's like if the bus driver tells you you're good to go, you feel like you should just be able to go. Anything else that we didn't hit on back to school safety?
Jason:No, I think it's patience, right? If you put one word on it, it's just patience. Be patient when you're driving around, be patient with our kids, be patient in parking lots and things like that. Even though it might be a routine that people have been used to in the past, when we haven't done it for three months, all those routines have to kinda be, you know, reintegrated back into their mindset. So just again, I mean, we're not you you might lose two minutes, three minutes getting somewhere, but it to put anybody at risk just to to save a little bit of time just isn't worth it.
Caryn:For sure. Reminder, school starts when?
Jason:Starts Tuesday after Labor Day.
Caryn:Yeah. So September 2. And just a reminder, drivers should be more cautious and slower and patient and be on the lookout for kids walking, biking, or just getting in on and off the bus. Thank you so much for coming in today to talk about So school starts the second, but when's our first football game? That's the important part, right?
Jason:Well, for some people it is. So yeah, August 28, Thursday night.
Caryn:And that's a home game?
Jason:Home game. I think I believe it's against Eastview. Don't quote me on that, but it's 07:00.
Caryn:Alright. Well, go Tigers. Right?
Jason:Go Tigers.
Caryn:Alright. Thank you.
Jason:You're welcome.
