School Resource Officers (SROs)

Our school resource officers (SROs) are carefully selected, specifically and highly trained, and properly equipped full-time law enforcement officers with sworn law enforcement authority. They are trained by the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) in school-based law enforcement and crisis intervention response (CIT), assigned by the State College Police Department (SCPD) to work in the State College Area School District (SCASD) using community-oriented policing concepts.

Both of our SRO’s have completed and are Certified through NASRO in both Basic and Advanced SRO Training, School CPTED (Crime Preventions Through Environmental Design), and Adolescent Mental Health Training. They continue to train and attend National and State School Safety Conferences to stay current in areas such as School Violence, Lessons Learned, Active Shooter, Threat and Risk Assessment, Suicide Prevention, Community Violence, Responding to students in crisis, Cultural Diversity/Competence, Implicit Bias, Conflict De-escalation/Resolution, and Community Oriented Policing

The goal of the SCPD SRO program includes providing a safe learning environment within the SCASD, providing valuable resources to school staff members, fostering positive relationships with youth, developing strategies to resolve problems affecting youth and protecting all students, so that they can reach their fullest potentials. We use a “triad concept” to define the three main roles of school resource officers: Educator (i.e. guest lecturer), informal counselor/mentor, and law enforcement officer.

Our carefully selected, specially trained school resource officers follow NASRO’s best practices. SRO’s do not arrest or get involved with students for disciplinary issues that would have otherwise been handled by teachers and/or administrators if the SROs were not in use. Our SROs do not enforce school rules and behavioral expectations, instead educators handle classroom management and school disciplinary situations.

On the contrary, SROs help and try to mentor students to avoid involvement with the juvenile justice system. SRO’s work to divert students to community resources, Intervention programs, and alternatives in community justice. In fact, wide acceptance of NASRO best practices is one reason that the rates of juvenile arrests throughout the U.S. fell during a period when the proliferation of SROs increased (see To Protect and Educate: The School Resource Officer and the Prevention of Violence in Schools).