School Resource Officers learn critical safety skills ahead of school year

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Before students return to the classroom, the men and women who keep kids safe had to do some learning of their own.

In Ohio, there is a class that all School Resource Officers (SROs) must attend.

Tom Hurst is the SRO at Wilson Middle School in Hamilton, but he’s also the vice president of the Ohio School Resource Officers Association.

The Ohio School Resource Officers Association prepares SROs for the transition from the road to the classroom.

“In the schools, you never know what’s coming at you, so you have to be prepared for everything,” explained Hurst. “You just don’t know what’s coming from the outside, what’s happening on the inside, so you have to be prepared for everything.”

While emergency procedures are an important part of the job, that’s not something taught in the SRO classroom during their mandated week-long training.

“We don’t go into tactics when they’re being trained as SROs, it’s more preparing them that it’s going to be different (from being) a patrolman,” Hurst described. “They’re going to have to work with administrators, they’re going to have to work with kids. They’re going to have to learn how to gain their trust and be around people all the time.”

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Joel Altman is new to the SRO role.

He’s taking over at Princeton Middle School and attended SRO classes for the first time at the end of July.

Altman is mixed in with the group of nearly 100 officers receiving training on how to deal with kids and administrators.

“It’s not about being an enforcer in the school setting,” said Altman. “That’s not to say we’re not prepared for that situation. We actually had active shooter training in one of our schools, and it was good. It gives you a different mindset of what you need to do in those situations.”

Altman said the classes focus on building relationships with teenagers, being a resource for them and finding ways to meet them where they are.

“I learned a lot about the dark web and things kids are doing online and some of the messaging apps and the photo-generated AI components that kids are into now,” Altman said. “So, I learned a lot about that.”

Hurst said those relationships can help departments with issues on the streets, ranging from domestic issues at home to missing or runaway kids.

When it comes to issues within the school, Hurst said officers will generally let schools handle discipline unless the behavior crosses a line into criminal activity.

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