Blake Lytle, Master Patrol Officer and CHS SRO, uses a presentation to teach staff members about security risks at CHS. Lytle said informing teachers about safety in the building is a great way to get more teacher involvement in security.

The CHS School Resource Officers (SROs) and CHS Administration  are focused on developing positive relationships with students and increasing safety measures this school year. According to Christopher Glander, Freshman Center and safety administrator, they have been doing this by creating a committee of staff members with the goal of engaging staff members in student safety.

According to Glander, the goal is to get more feedback from staff members on how to best handle security and safety concerns for students

“Our committee will be comprised of about nine staff members, we’ll meet about once a month, or once every other month. And, we’ll have discussions about our safety plan and we’ll talk a little bit about things they’re seeing,” said Glander. “Our hope is to get a little more buy-in from the staff, not that we don’t have buy-in, but just a better connection between staff and students as it pertains to some of our safety practices. Just to have more eyes and ears to what we’re doing from a school standpoint.”

Additionally, administrators and SROs are committed to creating beneficial relationships with the students they protect.

Glander said a way to construct these relationships is by being “visible” to the students.

“What I mean by visible is, before school, after school, during passing periods, during lunch, not just standing and talking but being visible, circulating, getting eyes on students, and hopefully mitigating… confrontations or different things like that,” Glander said. “We aim to be accessible to students, so they always know that there are adults they can talk to.”

Sophomore Marcus Grethen said having the SROs in the building makes him feel safe and he believes they foster a safer environment for CHS students.

“I think (the SROs) have a very positive impact on safety and they make me feel a lot better about the community we have in high school,” said Grethen. “I’m not intimidated by them at all, and they’re all pretty nice and I can have conversations with them without being scared.”

Cristhian Rodriguez, Master Patrol Officer and SRO said it’s important for students to feel comfortable with officers, and engaging with them on a personal level is a great way to create trust between students and officers.

“It definitely helps when you’re face-to-face with students. We’re doing (more) classes and presentations, things like that, so we do get face-to-face with students to build that trust and relationship,” said Rodriguez. “I mean already in the first couple weeks, we’ve seen students approaching us and coming to our offices, and having that trust to meet with us. So if they did come in for discipline, we try to offer our support and resources to help alleviate or prevent things from reoccurring. It’s a huge way to target the cause of why things are happening.”