The School Resource Officer at Sullivan Central High School has been hailed as a hero after the incident Monday morning at the school, in which an armed man was killed after he threatened the principal and SRO at gunpoint.

 

The SRO, an employee of the Sullivan County Sheriff's Department, and the school principal confronted the man inside the school entrance and kept him away from students until deputies arrived.

 

Resource officers are police and sheriff's deputies who take individual schools as their "beats." They are present frequently in schools, often walking the hallways. Because they become virtual fixtures in schools, resource officers usually develop good relationships with students. They have several goals. One, of course, is to keep the peace in schools, and to make them safer for students and teachers.

 

Violence in today's public schools continues to be on the rise and the unfortunate truth is that not all incidents such as the one at Sullivan Central are going to be preventable occurrences unless safety measures are dramatically increased.

 

The security measures offered by public schools should allow students to feel safe, however, there are no guarantees that a gunman won't walk into one of our local schools and begin shooting. It happened at Columbine. It happened at a small Amish school in Lancaster, Pa., and it happened at Virginia Tech University. No school is safe and none of the schools expected it.

 

However, it remains the public school's job to protect kids while on their premises, even from themselves, by providing the best environment possible conducive to learning.

 

The SRO is far more than a glorified hall monitor or security guard. Their presence clearly makes the school a safer place. They keep a close eye on what is going on inside the school. They seek to gain the trust of students and develop a rapport that allows them to come to the SRO with problems that can be stopped. Should a student bring a weapon to school, it is likely that the SRO will hear about it before the student ever gets to class. Furthermore, they are trained to react to situations involving drugs, guns, school bullies, angry parents and others, who may visit the school and threaten teachers. The Sullivan Central SRO knew her job and she handled Monday's event very professionally. As a result, no student was ever in harm's way.

 

The SRO program is one of the most positive influences on young people that the county and city can sponsor. The officers develop relationships with the students in a relaxed and casual atmosphere and can work on removing the negative images that school kids can develop from street conversations or television programming. The students learn they can trust the officers and come to realize that the police are actually there to keep everyone safe.

 

Carter County is fortunate to have resource officers at each of its high schools. Elizabethton High School also has an SRO. As school systems and local law enforcement cope with tighter budgets, it may be tempting for them to consider eliminating resource officers. However, we hope that does not happen. The incident at Sullivan Central is a good reason why.