NORTHFIELD — Walking past a Northfield police officer in the hallways will be a common occurrence next year for all students in the Pioneer Valley Regional School District.
Massachusetts mandates all school districts in the state to employ at least one school resource officer for the 2016-2017 school year and beyond. Pioneer Superintendent Ruth Miller has allocated $25,000 from the School Choice fund to pay for the position.
Although the officer will take necessary actions to protect the staff and students in the case of an emergency, Northfield Police Chief Rob Leighton said, the primary task at hand is for the officer to act as a liaison between students with the goal of making them feel comfortable enough to approach with questions or concerns they may not want to take up with a guidance counselor or a teacher.
“We currently have a police officer in this department who is interested in the position and when the position becomes permanent after town meeting, we will start taking steps to provide him with additional training and make sure he’s up to speed before the first day of the next school year,” Leighton said.
The officer will look approachable and while he may not be wearing a full uniform but perhaps a golf shirt and khaki pants, he’ll carry the necessary equipment to approach a dangerous situation, should it occur. The day-to-day schedule has yet to be determined and even though the officer will spend most of his time at Pioneer and Northfield Elementary schools, Leighton said he will make the rounds to all the schools in the district throughout the week.
“I don’t particularly want an officer in the school who is just there for law enforcement purposes,” Leighton said. “I want him to be part of the school community and to work in a group fashion to address problems and help any way he can. I want him to be a resource.”
Sharing the halls with an officer shouldn’t come as a surprise to students according to Leighton, who said all fifth-graders in Northfield Elementary School for the past 20 years have been required to take a 10-week drug abuse resistance education course taught by a police officer; however, the department’s presence in the high school hasn’t been as strong until a few years ago.
“We’ve used officers at Pioneer to assist with some of the health classes and they’ve been able to address questions directly from the students about different types of drugs, what the legal consequences are and the dangers and pitfalls of drugs and alcohol,” he said. “We’ve done that on several occasions this past year and the year prior and we got a very good response, not only from the students and teachers, but from the parents.”
Leighton plans to hire a part-time reserve officer within the department to take the place of the resource officer and said there are a number of candidates who are qualified for the position.
“We have some very good candidates right now who are already working here and many of them have already expressed interest,” he said. “The benefit from hiring within is that these officers are already familiar with the community and they understand how to work in a small town.”
Leighton said the residents of Bernardston, Leyden, Northfield and Warwick have been overwhelmingly supportive of the statewide initiative and believes the new position will make a positive impact on the residents.
“I am very excited. I think this is a great opportunity for not just the school, but for the department,” he said. “This takes the next step in our community policing initiatives and I don’t see anything but benefits from this.”