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District SRO reports 232 school-related calls, fentanyl awareness outreach and staffing limits
Summary
The districtschool resource officer told the board that SROs and patrol officers responded to 232 school-related calls over the review period and described outreach, drug-awareness presentations and constraints on investigative capacity.
The School Resource Officer (SRO) for Forest Grove SD 15 reported to the board on March 5 that 232 school-related calls occurred between Dec. 1, 2024 and Feb. 28, 2025 and described the split between responses handled by the SRO and responses handled by patrol officers.
The SRO said the SRO unit took 22 of the calls directly and that Forest Grove patrol officers responded to approximately 110 calls when the SRO was unavailable, with the remainder handled by other responses assigned to school locations. The SRO told the board that 53 percent of school-related responses were handled by SRO personnel and the rest by patrols.
Breaking calls down by location, the SRO reported the high school received the largest share and that off-campus investigations accounted for a substantial portion of workload: "Approximately one-third of the SRO calls are off campus," the SRO said, describing home visits, hospital interviews and agency meetings as examples. The SRO said he responded to 84 incidents at two locations during the reporting window and filed 30 original reports, 11 supplemental reports and five arrests.
The SRO described common categories of incidents as harassment, Department of Human Services (DHS) investigations, criminal mischief, juvenile sex crimes, social-media-related incidents, gang-related reports and fights. He said investigations can take weeks because of the time needed to contact witnesses and coordinate with medical staff, DHS and juvenile services.
On prevention and outreach the SRO described 11 fentanyl and drug-awareness presentations at Armstrong Middle School (NAMS) and outreach at a community police academy and the NAMS belonging summit. The officer said fentanyl is showing up primarily in counterfeit pills and that the Washington County Interagency Drug Task Force uses a laser-testing device to determine pill contents: "The only way that I'm aware of that we're able to 100 determine what it is" is the task force's laser, he said.
The SRO also announced upcoming events including a driver-safety presentation for parents and students on March 20 and career-day engagements; he described barriers to proactive community policing, including high call loads and limits on investigative interviewing on campus when parental consent is required: "I can't interview students on school property without parental consent if they're suspected of a crime," the SRO said, noting that requirement lengthens some investigations.
Board members asked follow-up questions about whether call volumes were consistent with previous years and whether interagency communication improvements had eased his workload; the officer said communication had improved but workload remained high. He described the district as "like a small city for one officer" given about 6,600 students and noted staffing and schedule constraints limited proactive initiatives.
The SRO asked the board and community to treat drug education as proactive prevention and to support coordination that reduces investigatory lag time.
