Today, I got a letter from the Parent Teacher Association at my daughter's elementary school. The PTA is alarmed that Olympia High School is losing an SRO. In our acronym-bloated society, this no longer just means Standing Room Only, but also School Resource Officer.
Which begs the question, what is a School Resource Officer? Common sense would suggest that School Resources are classrooms and desks, faculty and staff, pencils and computers. But no, in our doublespeak world, an SRO is a police officer.
The SRO in question is not really assigned to the elementary school, but to the high school next door. In our empathy-poor gun-rich world, the SRO is a symbol of how serious we are about making sure our school does not become the next mass-murder scene.
"Symbol" may be the key word there. If someone walked into the elementary school and started shooting, city police could easily be quicker to the scene than the lone cop running over from the high school. For that matter, while there is evidence that courageous and well-trained faculty can suppress the body count, there's not much to suggest that SROs prevent or even seriously mitigate the murderous effects of a determined individual with firepower. It makes some people feel safer to have the police on campus while our kids learn French and Geometry, I guess; it's a hell of a lot easier than gun control or putting in the hours to make sure our kids are good humans.
For the time being, few people express the opinion that an SRO is a symbol of our paranoid and anti-democratic response to terror. In the PTA message to parents, in fact, the only action proposed, indeed the only option for response, is to fill out a form opposing loss of this school cop.
Among the reasons this is being characterized as a loss is that there will be diminished ability to track down drug abuse and what is presented as a spate of "organized fighting" off-campus. The PTA latter laments that the private security guard who will (seemingly without discussion) be hired to replace the SRO has no authority beyond the high school. The greatest concern is that without this SRO, illegal activities occuring off school grounds will be un-challenged. Regarding the fact that the SRO is an Olympia city police officer, who can still deal with crimes off and on campus, the PTA letter is silent.
The neighborhoods cited as the location for drug use and fighting are among the wealthiest in Olympia. I've heard residents express fear and discomfort about the drug-dealing and other nefarious activities downtown, but maybe having another patrolman down there is not worth losing a cop devoted to their neighborhood school. Like schools, the police force has limited resources, and I, for one, am happy to see them re-assign a school babysitter to the streets.
Meanwhile, I'd like to see the financial resources spent on police and "security" (really? a rent-a-cop is going to end drug abuse and prevent attacks?) re-assigned to teachers and educational materials. Fund the police to keep the peace, and the schools to educate. But we all know that won't happen.
It's sad that parents are so ready to abrogate responsibility to a cop, and so at ease with a name that both dilutes the meaning of "school resources" and acclimates our soon-to-be-voting populace to having police everywhere. It's disappointing that discussion about this issue is forestalled and reduced to an opportunity to complain about the loss of a non-teaching, non-contributing staff person.
Which begs the question, what is a School Resource Officer? Common sense would suggest that School Resources are classrooms and desks, faculty and staff, pencils and computers. But no, in our doublespeak world, an SRO is a police officer.
The SRO in question is not really assigned to the elementary school, but to the high school next door. In our empathy-poor gun-rich world, the SRO is a symbol of how serious we are about making sure our school does not become the next mass-murder scene.
"Symbol" may be the key word there. If someone walked into the elementary school and started shooting, city police could easily be quicker to the scene than the lone cop running over from the high school. For that matter, while there is evidence that courageous and well-trained faculty can suppress the body count, there's not much to suggest that SROs prevent or even seriously mitigate the murderous effects of a determined individual with firepower. It makes some people feel safer to have the police on campus while our kids learn French and Geometry, I guess; it's a hell of a lot easier than gun control or putting in the hours to make sure our kids are good humans.
For the time being, few people express the opinion that an SRO is a symbol of our paranoid and anti-democratic response to terror. In the PTA message to parents, in fact, the only action proposed, indeed the only option for response, is to fill out a form opposing loss of this school cop.
Among the reasons this is being characterized as a loss is that there will be diminished ability to track down drug abuse and what is presented as a spate of "organized fighting" off-campus. The PTA latter laments that the private security guard who will (seemingly without discussion) be hired to replace the SRO has no authority beyond the high school. The greatest concern is that without this SRO, illegal activities occuring off school grounds will be un-challenged. Regarding the fact that the SRO is an Olympia city police officer, who can still deal with crimes off and on campus, the PTA letter is silent.
The neighborhoods cited as the location for drug use and fighting are among the wealthiest in Olympia. I've heard residents express fear and discomfort about the drug-dealing and other nefarious activities downtown, but maybe having another patrolman down there is not worth losing a cop devoted to their neighborhood school. Like schools, the police force has limited resources, and I, for one, am happy to see them re-assign a school babysitter to the streets.
Meanwhile, I'd like to see the financial resources spent on police and "security" (really? a rent-a-cop is going to end drug abuse and prevent attacks?) re-assigned to teachers and educational materials. Fund the police to keep the peace, and the schools to educate. But we all know that won't happen.
It's sad that parents are so ready to abrogate responsibility to a cop, and so at ease with a name that both dilutes the meaning of "school resources" and acclimates our soon-to-be-voting populace to having police everywhere. It's disappointing that discussion about this issue is forestalled and reduced to an opportunity to complain about the loss of a non-teaching, non-contributing staff person.
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