Education Week - June 6, 2018 - 13

School Officers: Who They Are; What They Do
Local police or
sheriff's department
School police department

57%
20

Other

23

Enforcing laws
33

Mentoring

17

Enforcing school discipline

7

Yes

10
Handcuffs

8

Takeaway: School police officers' on-the-job experiences
vary. While most are assigned to a single school, many
work at multiple campuses. The vast majority of them carry
firearms and handcuffs.

74

Mental health

73

Mentoring

55

Working with special education students

54

Child trauma
The teen brain

What is your race/ethnicity?
Hispanic

39

Mace

55

Taser

54

Body camera

30

37

Which of the following
best describes the
location of the school or
schools where you work?

What is your gender?

Other
Female

5 4
Black

93

Takeaway: White men dominate the school police ranks,
while federal data show that nonwhite students comprise the
majority of public school student enrollment.

88

Working with youth

97

Gun

3

93

Conflict de-escalation

34

Which of the following do you carry with you
during a typical school day? Select all that apply.

18

75%

Responding to active shooters

66

No

61

The perimeter of the school

Have you received training in the following
areas? Select all that apply.

52

Does your school specify what types of student
disciplinary issues you can intervene in?

School hallways

25

48

No

Where do you spend the most time during
a typical school day?

Classrooms

40

Yes

(e.g.: ensuring safety and security,
assisting administrators

Teaching 2

School office

60%

Do you monitor students in the school or
schools that you serve on social media?

41

Other

Before you became a school police officer,
did you have experience working with youth?

No

(e.g.: private company,
board of education)

What is your primary role?

School cafeteria

Yes

I am assigned to
one school
I am assigned to
multiple schools

Urban

16

21

21
42

Takeaway: Most school officers worked with
youth before their K-12 job, the survey found,
though fewer have training in areas such as the
effects of trauma and how the teen brain works.
SOURCE: Education Week Research Center

To see full results of this survey: www.edweek.org/go/SRO-survey

69%
White

84

Suburban

37
Male

Rural/town

EDUCATION WEEK | June 6, 2018 | www.edweek.org | 13

Getty

M

Which of the following best describes
your work assignment?

Who is your employer?

entor. Confidante. First-responder. Enforcer.
School resource officers juggle those and
numerous other roles in their complex jobs
working in public schools. When they are
in the national spotlight, they are often
cast as heroes, like the SRO in Dixon, Ill.,
whom authorities credited last month with
thwarting a mass shooting, or villains, like the officer at Marjory
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., who stayed outside
the building while a former student shot and killed 17 people inside.
This specialized law enforcement profession began growing after
the 1999 mass shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado
when many schools hired officers as deterrents to would-be violent
assailants. In 2015-16, 42 percent of public schools reported having
a school resource officer present at least once per week, according
to federal data. In the wake of two mass school shootings this year,
the profession is headed into a new period of expansion as states
and local jurisdictions hustle to hire and train more school police.
But there are still lots of unknowns about the nation's cadre of school
resource officers: how they are trained, their roles, and the overall
impact of their presence on school safety and climate. To better
understand the people working in this profession and how they
see their roles, the Education Week Research Center conducted
a nationally representative survey of nearly 400 school resource
officers. Here are some of the topline results.
http://www.edweek.org/go/SRO-survey http://www.edweek.org
Education Week - June 6, 2018

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Education Week - June 6, 2018
