Our Children are not only The Future of Our Country and The Future of Our World, but they are also Every Family’s Greatest Treasure.
Therefore, we need to do whatever is necessary to make sure Our Children are safe when we send them off to school every morning.
During my years as a teacher, school administrator, and professor, I Loved My Students so much that I was always concerned about their safety at school.
I taught in one school that had the school cafeteria just inside the front entrance to the school, and so this was an extremely important security area that was potentially very vulnerable during lunch time.
Because of this area of vulnerability, I often thought about what I was going to do to personally attack and tackle a school shooter if one had begun shooting after coming through the front door.
I made a plan for the route I was going to take from my office so that I would be able to get close enough to the shooter to have a chance to run at them and tackle them.
School resource officers are often placed in schools to Protect Our Children because many people think that school resource officers are the best deterrent and defense against school shooters.
It has also been found that having a school resource officer reduces day-to-day violent incidents in a school by 30%, which keeps principals and teachers from needing to spend as much of their workday on disciplinary issues that take time away from their work providing education to students.
However, some people think that school resource officers are not good to have because they can cause negative effects on children through an increase in disciplinary punishments, school suspensions, and even criminal arrests.
Some people also think that school resource officers can be biased against minority students.
As we look to make the decision on what is Best For Our Children, we need to realize that our first priority is to keep Our Children safe from outside threats.
We also want to understand that the excellent safety positives of a school resource officer are accomplished by having someone in the school resource officer position, while any possible negatives can only occur if the person hired to fill the officer role has personal characteristics that cause negative situations for our students.
Therefore, we should not be deterred from hiring school resource officers because of the personality faults or work-related faults that some school resource officers have had in some locations in the past.
In the same way, there are some regular police officers who do things that are wrong, but that does not mean we do not have any police officers.
Likewise, there are some teachers who do things that are wrong, but that does not mean we do not hire any teachers.
This principle applies in any career field.
There are always some people who do things wrong in any career field, but that does not mean that we do not have anyone in that career field.
I have spent many years as a teacher, professor, and school administrator, and I have worked with many outstanding school resource officers who have been some of the most important people and most important role models for our students in our school.
In my educational career experience, I have found that the Greatness in a school is very often provided by the people who work in the schools, such as the custodians, the school resource officers, the lunch room workers, and the staff who are not teachers or principals.
Teachers have a very important job teaching in the classroom, but because teachers are inside their classrooms for most of their workday, and because they only get to see a small percentage of their school’s students inside their classes, then teachers are often only able to have a direct positive impact on a limited number of the students in their school.
Likewise, principals are very busy in their offices with the management and administration of their school. In addition, they often need to leave the school for meetings in their district with superintendents, with other school principals, and for training meetings that are outside of school.
Every school has a culture and an ecosystem that the school functions around, and although the teachers and the principals are a very important contributor to this culture, it is arguable that the biggest contributors to a positive or a negative school culture are the school workers, such as the custodians and school resource officers who are out in the hallways and community areas of the school all day and every day, seeing students throughout every day, and providing their own personal brand of Caring, Love, and Encouragement.
Some of the most outstanding people I have ever met in schools have been the custodians and the school resource officers.
For example, my daughter received an award in high school one time, and she was presented the award in the gym in front of a full gymnasium of people sitting in the bleachers.
As soon as my daughter was given the award, she walked over to the front row of the bleachers to give a hug to one person, Charlie Jennings, an older man who was her high school’s long-time custodian, and who my daughter was very close to.
Charlie had spent four years giving positive encouragement to my daughter throughout her high school career, just like he had given his positive encouragement to each and every student in the entire school for the past 25 years.
I cherish that memory of my daughter hugging Charlie, and the thought of it brings tears to my eyes.
Charlie was so kind and humble that he did not even realize the tremendously positive impact he was having on so many children.
I have also worked with custodians at other schools who were just as valuable to their students.
One woman I remember, especially, because she was the most important person in the school building for a large number of Our Students who relied on her as a mother figure, confidante, and friend.
Likewise, school resource officers can be just as important to the students and to the school.
When I was teaching and being a school administrator, I would make a special effort to spend time with the school resource officers, talking with them and getting to know them.
Some school districts would rotate school resource officers so that they were changing every month or two.
However, when I found a school resource officer who Cared About and Loved Our Students, and so was Great at his or her job, then I would spend a lot of time talking with that officer and convincing him or her how Great it would be for them to become our school resource officer full-time.
I would speak with them about the tremendous positive impact they could have on Our Student’s Lives.
When these outstanding men and women became our full-time resource officer, then the Love and the Kindness they gave to Our Students, and the tremendous work they did For Our Students and For Our School, was amazing and extraordinarily positive.
An outstanding school resource officer not only Protects Our Students from harm, but he or she also provides Love and Caring to Our Students individually, serves as a tremendous role model for Our Students, provides motivation to Our Students to become a police officer as a career, and reduces student anxiety toward police officers by helping Our Students to trust and count on police officers to help them whenever they are out in the regular world away from school.
In conclusion, we need to Protect Our Children when they are at school, and school resource officers are the very best option for us to be able to do that.
The negatives that some people have experienced with school resource officers are not because of the position itself, but rather because of the guidelines and rules that those officers were asked to perform in, or because of negative personality characteristics of specific officers.
Therefore, because the Truth and the Solution is Always in the Middle, to find the Truth and the Solution with school resource officers then we need to consider and evaluate both the positive and the negative viewpoints.
Through our evaluation and consideration of both viewpoints, the facts show that we should have school resource officers to Protect Our Students.
However, we should only hire resource officers who have a teacher’s mentality and Love for Our Students, and we should only hire school resource officers who truly Love and Care about Their Students just like Their Students are Their Own Children.
In addition, we need to work with the states and with the federal government departments to create the National Guidelines and the Rules that school resource officers are required to work within.
Our National Guidelines will never allow school resource officers to be biased against students because of race, gender, or preferences, and our National Guidelines will not allow school resource officers to be focused on discipline, school suspensions, and arrests.
Instead, our Guidelines and Rules will require that our school resource officers are always focused on the protection of Our Students from outside threats, and will require that our school resource officers are always focused on becoming positive adult role models and Caring Leaders For All Our Students in Our Schools.
Any school resource officer who does not work within these guidelines, or who is not a positive and caring role model for their students, will be replaced by a resource officer who will provide these crucially important personal characteristics and Loving behavior toward Our Students.
With this positive image that our school resource officers must always build and develop, then we will also utilize our school resource officers to sometimes go into the classrooms to speak with the students about safety, to help students to develop trust in regular police officers, to provide valuable career advice, and to teach and motivate our students about staying out of trouble.
Our National Guidelines and Rules will make it a requirement that school resource officers can only work for the school and cannot also work for the police department. This Rule will keep any conflict of interest or bias from being created by a school resource officer who is going back and forth between the school and the police department.
Along with this police department requirement, school resource officers will also not be allowed to provide a connection between Our Students in Our Schools and the criminal justice system so that Our Students will always see their school resource officers as their friend and ally.
In summary, school resource officers are a very crucial part of keeping Our Children safe in school, and for us to maximize their benefit for Our Students then we always need to take the time to find and hire school resource officers who Love and Care deeply about Our Students, and who treat Our Students just like their students are their own children.
We will also create very detailed National Guidelines and Rules for the work that our outstanding school resource officers are required to do, so that they are always serving as Positive, Caring, and Loving role models for their students, while they are diligently and passionately focused on Protecting Our Students.
LET US BUILD A SAFE AND WONDERFUL WORLD FOR OUR CHILDREN
