THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 30, 1996 TAG: 9608300518
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: BACK TO SCHOOL
SOURCE: BY MATTHEW BOWERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 132 lines
New in the city's public high and middle schools this year: uniforms. Uniforms with badges. And handcuffs. And guns.
Starting with the first day of school Tuesday, a specially trained Virginia Beach Police officer will be assigned to each of the 10 city high schools and half the middle schools - a total of 16 officers by January.
These School Resource Officers will be in the schools full time, but the officers will answer to the Police Department. During the summers, when the schools are out, they'll go where the kids are - they'll beef up the police presence at the Oceanfront.
With the new program, Virginia Beach joins a national movement toward such police-school cooperation.
Law enforcers and educators say it makes perfect sense, with thousands of young people under one roof for six or more hours each day, and with most criminals and crime victims coming from the 14- to 24-year-old age group.
``It's a fact that it's time. We're no longer a small town - we're a big city,'' said Lt. James A. Cervera, community-policing project coordinator and organizer of the School Resource Officer program.
``It's a whole lot easier to do it now and be proactive, than wait a decade and be reactive.
Virginia Beach's high schools and middle schools for years have employed trained ``security assistants'' who supervise students in the hallways and cafeterias. They will continue to do that, since it won't be the School Resource Officers' jobs to supervise students, said Jonathan L. Harnden, director of student leadership. ``The school environment is a big part of the community,'' Cervera said. ``If something happens on the street tonight, it's going to make its way into the high school, and vice versa.''
The lieutenant said no particular problems caused him to seek grant money from the U.S. Justice Department for the extra officers, although police have intercepted guns outside city schools in recent years and have spotted fledgling gang activity in the city. The school officers are intended more to prevent problems than to respond to them, especially before a big increase in teens moves through the school system in the next decade or two, Cervera said.
``Socially, Virginia Beach has changed a lot in the past 10 years,'' Cervera said. ``We've begun to see the urban problems that other cities have seen.''
Students have mixed feelings about rubbing elbows with police officers every day.
``I think it's a real good idea,'' said Charles Baker, a 16-year-old junior at Green Run High School. ``There'll be less fights. And the drug sales will decrease.''
He thinks most schoolmates would agree. ``To most of them, I don't think it'll be a problem. I think they'll feel safer.''
But other students from Cox High School weren't keen on the idea.
The schools ``don't need them,'' complained sophomore Patrick Goad, 14.
``Like in prison,'' said Brent Miller, 17, a freshman. ``The teachers will like it. Students won't.''
``It makes you feel insecure,'' said Andre Dobbins, a 14-year-old freshman. ``You walk around, you see police everwhere.''
Another student disagreed. ``It doesn't bother me,'' said Mike Thomas, also 14 and a freshman at Cox. ``I don't pay any attention to them.''
But Miller's mother, Mary Miller, favored the plan. It'll keep students in school that belong there, she said, and keep out those people who don't.
``I think that's great,'' she said. ``I think children don't like supervisors, anyway. . . . I guess if they feel inferior at all, they must be doing something wrong.
That's one of the goals, said William S. Peachy, Virginia Beach coordinator of security and safe schools.
``The idea, I believe, is to make it very up front and visible that police are on the premises and are available on counseling legal matters as well,'' Peachy said. ``The idea, obviously, is not to be there to arrest people as things happen,'' but for prevention.
Michael J. Debranski, principal of Bayside High School, welcomes the help.
``I think it's a great idea!'' he exclaimed. ``I think it gives added visibility to the notion that we consider the safety of our students a priority.
``Now this isn't just a show-of-force type of situation. . . . They're also going to be used to educate, work in the classrooms with kids, even counseling, as necessary,'' Debranski said.
Bayside's resource officer requested the assignment. Richard W. Campbell, 26, graduated from Bayside in 1988. He pole-vaulted on the track team. He was raised in Aragona Village and his family still lives there. He knows the area and, in many cases, Bayside's students or their families.
``I want to help out the community,'' said Campbell.
``I've been there before. I know what goes through these kids' minds. I know just about everything that goes on around Bayside.
``I'm not just going around trying to get the drugs and weapons out of the school - that's one of the things I'm going to do. I also want to go around helping the students,'' he said.
Posting police officers in schools has been going on for as long as 20 years in some places around the United States, and more recently elsewhere in Virginia.
For years Chesapeake has operated a Youth Services Bureau, with detectives assigned to one or more schools. They also investigate juvenile-crime cases. Portsmouth places uniformed detectives in a couple of its high schools. Norfolk police don't have school officers; the schools hire their own security personnel.
One of the closest to Virginia Beach's program is the one in Suffolk in its third year, where an officer has been assigned to each of the city's two high schools.
Detective Andre L. Weaver Sr., a 12-year veteran, said he's looking forward to being with the students again at Lakeland High School on Tuesday. He had simple advice for his Virginia Beach counterparts.
``As long as they figure you're honest with them, they'll be honest with you,'' Weaver said. ``The best advice I can give them going in, is they're going to have to be honest with the kids, plus they're going to have to be flexible . . .''
While Weaver will engage in question-and-answer sessions in government classes and, this year, teach an introduction to juvenile crime and law, he's a police officer first. He keeps his school administration aware of area crime patterns, gives them advice on criminal matters and solicits tips from the students. He helped establish Crime Line programs in the schools for anonymous tips, which so far have solved an armed robbery and three bomb threats, said Michael E. Simpkins, a Suffolk police spokesman.
``It's almost like you have one whole city you deal with all day long,'' Weaver said. ``That's sort of like my little city.''
``You will find that this is a very non-traditional way of doing business for police officers,'' said Virginia Beach's Cervera.
``I think the city is really taking a bold step.'' MEMO: Stories from this series on area schools are on the News page of
Pilot Online at http://www.pilotline.com ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
MARTIN SMITH-RODDEN
The Virginian-Pilot
As a school resource officer, Richard W. Campbell, 26, has been
assigned to Bayside High.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA BEACH SCHOOLS SECURITY VIRGINIA BEACH
POLICE EDUCATION by CNB