Calgary school resource officer program gets dozens of recommendations for improvement

After two and a half years of hearing from students, parents, teachers and community members, police found SROs have “general positive support."

The Calgary Police Service has a plan for how to improve School Resource Officers (SROs) in city schools.

On Wednesday, the Calgary Police Commission heard that after two and a half years of hearing from students, parents, teachers and community members, police found SROs have “general positive support,” including from racialized, LGBTQ2 and disabled students.

“The people we consulted want the program to continue with, of course, some refinements and enhancements,” deputy chief Katie McLellan said.

The Calgary Police Service developed 46 recommendations addressing areas like clearly defining the role of the officers in schools, better training and hiring of SROs, improving transparency and communication, and better collaboration with the community. Police also plan on improving data collection and evaluation on SROs as a way to continually improve those officers’ performance as a whole.

Police said most children in elementary schools were generally positive in their impressions of officers and only interact with police during one of two annual lockdown drills.

“We’re not serving them super well to go on for success in junior high,” Keri Rak said.

Rak said student opinions of police tend to become negative in junior high, thanks largely to mass and social media.

“On the other hand, when they have had those interactions with police in their school, they have a lot of positive things to say. So the folks who have had those face-to-face interactions are doing really well,” Rak said.