School resource officer describes role as building relationships after STEM school incident

A school resource officer said the choice to serve in schools is motivated by day-to-day relationships with students and, in part, by a past tragedy at a STEM school that shaped current investments in school safety.

In a short interview exchange, an officer described the work as different from other first responders: "All first responders are mostly dealing with people on their worst days. Being a school resource officer, you get to actually bring joy and and hope," the officer said. When asked why relationships matter, the officer added, "The most important because you allow the kids to be comfortable with you. And then when they're comfortable, they're allowed to tell you things that they normally wouldn't."

The officer also referenced a traumatic event: "A hard time in my life was when we had the incident at STEM school. I was actually over at Valor when that happened," the officer said, describing that recent experience as part of why officials are focusing on school-based safety efforts. The interviewer acknowledged the difficulty, saying, "I'm so thankful that there are individuals like you in schools on a daily basis having those those deep conversations or just connecting on a on a day to day basis."

The exchange was conversational and did not include discussion of specific policies, departmental decisions, or votes. The officer emphasized that the daily work often has intangible outcomes: "It's kinda what we want and, you know, we'll never know our the impact that we have."