Hundreds of school resources officers train in Colorado, learn new practices
Hundreds of school resource officers from around the country will be in Colorado this week for the National School Safety Conference. Tony Ramaeker is one of those SROs attending the conference. Ramaeker said his job as a school resource officer is one of his biggest blessings.
"For us it's all about relationships, with a street cop it's all about enforcement," Ramaeker said. "I really think that my skills are best suited for the schools because in the schools, you prevent rather than respond, and if we can prevent things from happening, it's a win-win for everybody."
The SROs will learn trainings on how to better respond to violence in schools from learning more on de-escalating crises, to addressing mental health, to lessons learned from past school tragedies.
"As we build relationships and that trust with our kids, our students then feel more comfortable approaching us and saying, 'Hey, something isn't right about this individual or this person posted this on social media,'" said DJ Schoeff, the board president with the National Association of School Resource Officers. "And whether it's about mental health or acts of violence, it then gives us the opportunity to appropriately address the student that might be in crisis."
In September 2021, one of Colorado's largest school district's, Denver Public Schools, began the year without SROs because some within the district felt that having the officers contributes to the school to prison pipeline, and it's a conversation other districts continue to have. But Schoeff said it's about choosing the right person to do the job.
"This position is not for every police officer," he said. "So we need to carefully select our police officers that we're putting into the position of a school resource officer. Then, we need to very specifically train them, train them in specific information on how to work with kids."
Several Colorado safety experts will be speaking at the conference, including Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock and the former Columbine principal Frank DeAngelis.
