SRO’s Job Duties and Responsiblities
TRAINING:
Our SRO’s are trained by the Arizona Department of Education in a partnership with Law for Kids, which is the State of Arizona’s School Safety Program that allows each SRO to instruct Law Related Education (LRE) classes. All Chandler SRO’s are members of the Arizona School Resource Officers Association (ASROA) and the National School Resource Officers Association (NASRO), both of which provide training and networking among other SRO’s from across the state and nation.
(Mental Health, De-escalation, Diversity & Inclusion)
Additionally, our SRO’s are trained in a nationally recognized program, Mental Health First Aid for Youth, and they are trained in Crisis Intervention or commonly referred to as CIT. We follow the best practice CIT model, which is the Memphis Model. Our goal is to continue to have all of our SRO’s trained in both of these programs, which again demonstrates how we are utilizing the best training possible when working with the students in crisis. Moreover, we instruct all of our SRO’s in de-escalation techniques, which they also receive in their CIT classes as well as diversity and inclusion training. As you can see, we provide the best possible training to our SRO’s making them an extremely important part of the SRO Triad Model: Law Enforcement Officer, Teacher, Counselor and Mentors.
SRO UNIT MISSION:
The SRO’s provide an individual service to the parents, students, and staff at the school they serve.
First, they provide an enforcement presence on campus and take the appropriate police action when needed.
Second, they serve as a resource to the school’s counseling and attendance staff and are routinely called upon to talk to students and assist with students who are in crisis.
Third, the officers serve as a classroom resource providing numerous hours of Law Related Education (LRE) classes, which are taught over the course of the school year and they cover topics ranging from substance abuse to constitutional law.
SRO UNIT GOALS:
Each SRO develops relationships with the school staff, students and parents. We are here to assist your students and are positive role models. The Chandler Police Department SRO Unit takes great pride in having the best SRO Unit in the State of Arizona. We accomplish this by providing the best customer service, developing excellent and meaningful relationships, and providing the best education to the students and their families to work with the students, family members, and school staff to resolve any issues and to keep our youth out of the criminal justice system if at all possible.
** We do our best to teach and educate the students so they make good choices thus becoming great citizens and ambassadors in the community. **
COMMUNITY POLICING METHODS USED BY OUR SRO’s:
Each SRO utilizes both proactive and reactive community policing methods in dealing with educational institutions. Over half of Chandler’s SRO’s participate in extra-curricular activities at their schools such as clubs and coaching athletic teams. This enables the SRO to foster positive relationships with both students, parents and staff. Our SRO officers are model ambassadors to all of our community members. Finally, we provide the best possible customer service to all of our stakeholders in our community.