School Safety

School Resource Officers (SRO)

The Decatur Police Department and Decatur City Schools have a partnership to provide School Resource Officers (SRO’s) to work with students, parents and educators in providing a safe and drug free environment. The School Resource Officers are commonly referred to as SRO’s.  SRO’s are sworn police officers that are assigned to work in the school system on a full-time basis. These officers receive specialized, ongoing training and are certified through the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) in basic and advanced training courses. 

The Decatur SRO’s developed a program entitled ACES and this program was copyrighted by the City of Decatur. The name ACES is a acronym derived from Alternatives Choices Educational System. The ACES program is a collaborative effort between certified law enforcement officers, educators, local businesses, students, parents, and the community. School Resource Officers, through ACES, provide hundreds of hours of instruction to students in elementary, middle and high schools. They provide instruction on state and local laws, drug prevention, violence prevention, gang resistance and positive decision-making. The curriculums used are based on the principals of effectiveness as developed by the United States Department of Education. 

The ACES program offers a summer component to support at-risk youth that live in low-income areas and targets youths ages eight through fourteen. The ACES summer program serves about 300 low-income children each summer. The summer component helps develop a positive relationship between law enforcement and area youth, enhances the cooperative skills of local youth, develops the use of self esteem and confidence, introduces and encourages interaction with positive role models, exposes youth to career opportunities, and provides practice of skills needed for violence and drug prevention.

The School Resource Officers provide visible and a positive image for law enforcement, provide instructional services, serve as a confidential source to students and parents, and work to provide a safe and drug free school environment. The SRO’s participate in one-on-one law enforcement counseling with students, crisis preparedness planning, school security audits and assessments, safety programs and presentations, faculty in-service presentations, parent organization presentations, participate in threat assessments, truancy intervention, and they coordinate random searches of middle and high school campuses with the K-9 unit.  

The School Resource Officers serve as members of the district wide Crisis Response Team. The Crisis Response Team provides guidance and support to all local schools as needed with issues dealing with safe and drug free learning environment. The School Resource Officers have proven to be valuable and effective in their support of Decatur City Schools.