“I love it,” said Kevin Merrihew. “Honestly it’s something that is different every day, a lot different than (being) on the street. Instead, you’re going through and building relationships with kids and you get to see the same people.”
Officer Kevin Merrihew is a Naperville School Resource Officer, also known as SRO, who works at Madison Jr. High, Lincoln Jr. High, and the feeder elementary schools in the area.
The Job of a Naperville School Resource Officer
Naperville’s School Resource Unit is composed of police officers like Merrihew who work in the city’s elementary, junior high and high schools.
SROs serve the students, parents, teachers and others in the school community: mentoring youth, assisting with problem solving, and helping to maintain order.
“We’re in the schools as a partnership between the school district and the police department,” said Merrihew. “If there’s an extenuating circumstance in the school where safety threats happen, and if I can put a police officer inside a school when it happens, then we have a lot better chance of aiding these kids.”
The City of Naperville employs eight SROs in total. Throughout District 203, School Resource Officers serve at Naperville North and Naperville Central High Schools, as well as Jefferson, Washington, Lincoln and Madison junior high schools.
In Indian Prairie School District 204, Naperville Police Department SROs are present at both Neuqua Valley High School campuses, along with Hill, Gregory, Crone and Scullen middle schools.
An SRO’s day starts before the first bell rings. They help coordinate the pick up and drop off lines, along with making sure cars move efficiently.
“Once the bell rings and classes start, I walk around the school to catch up with administrators or teachers to see if there’s any news I need to know about,” said School Resource Officer Ryan Ford “It is good forming those positive relationships that the public doesn’t always get with the police. During passing periods, I’ll hang out in the halls, saying hi to the kids and giving them fist bumps.”
SRO Training
Officer Ryan Ford is in his second year of being an SRO. He works at Crone and Scullen Middle Schools, along with the feeder elementary schools. Ford, like all SROs in Naperville schools, was required to go through certain training protocols.
“For working as an SRO, we are certified by Illinois as juvenile trained officers,” said Ford. “We also have SRO specific training in Illinois, and we do CIT (Crisis Intervention Training) for any mental health tasks we need to address.”
Ford, Merrihew and other SROs within the Naperville Police Department play a key role in the safety and well-being of kids in both districts. Additionally, they help those in the educational communities enrich relationships with police officers.
“If I can go into (the schools) wearing the exact same thing that when a kid calls 9-1-1 someone will come to their house in, and say, ‘Hey that’s the guy that hands out stickers every Friday, or, ‘That’s the guy who sat down at my lunch table,’ I think that it’s been a total positive impact,” said Merrihew.
Naperville News 17’s Will Payne reports.
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