By Kelly Foreman
A playground full of students are hanging from monkey bars, toppling down slides and playing hopscotch on the sidewalk behind the school. In the library, they sit quietly as they listen to “Charlotte’s Web” and “The Magic School Bus.”
At the lunch table, as they trade fruit snacks for peanut butter sandwiches, they talk about upcoming spelling bees and the new kid in class.
Richmond police are working to initiate a pilot program where police officers would be behind the swings, playing with the children on the playground, reading books to them and enjoying a warm school lunch. Through the adopt-a-school program, officers would be interacting with the children regularly in a very personal way.
“One or maybe two officers will adopt an elementary school, set up a meeting with the administrators and set down some rules and guidelines,” said RPD Maj. Eddie Goode. “The officer will just drop in, in uniform, park their unit out front where it is very visible and just basically walk in and walk the hallways, introducing themselves to the kids and talking with them.”
Goode said the program is one that has been successful with other agencies across the nation, but is unique in the freedoms it gives both to the officers and schools to create their own program. At this point, the department is looking to get involved in Daniel Boone, Kingston, Kirksville, Kit Carson, Mayfield, Waco and White Hall elementary schools.
“We’re not going to be pushing to teach any kind of program,” Goode said. “However, if a teacher gets to know the officer and says, “Would you be interested in coming out one day this week and talking to my kids about safety or drugs?” Then yes, we will put together something. But that’s not our goal.”
The goal is for the children and police officer to build a relationship of trust, respect and confidence, Goode said. In starting with the elementary-aged children, Goode said when those children reach middle school and are dealing with changes and difficulties they will remember the support and respect they had from the officer.
“We’re hoping that this will give them the confidence in a police officer to go to them when they feel like they’ve got nowhere else to go,” Goode said. “When they get to middle school and start having these trying times, it will help them to deal with some of the problems that they have or give them the confidence to go to a police officer.”
In the same way that the good relationships would be built with the students, RPD Acting Chief Wanda Singleton said the students can share their experiences with their parents, hopefully bettering relationships with adults in the community as well.
“I think this program is going to give the children in the schools an opportunity to know what the police officers do from day to day,” Singleton said. “Most kids go home and tell their parents what they learned at school, and hopefully the parents will understand some of the things we do every day.”
Goode said the officers who would be participating in this program are different from school resource officers, which police local middle and high schools.
“As a police officer, if something happens while we’re there, then by all means we’re going to react to it,” Goode said. “But we’re not there for that means. We’re there to establish a relationship with the children and parents, to let them know who we are and develop a trust.”
Singleton agreed.
“This will give the children more accessibility to the police officer to talk to them one on one if they need to,” she said. “I think it’s important that even as children they have a way of getting in touch with a police officer whenever they need to.”
In addition to walking the hallways and talking with the children, faculty and staff, Goode said it is his hope that the officer will be able to embed himself into the students’ activities and become a regular face in the school.
“The ultimate goal is to have the kids on a first-name basis with the officer,” Goode said. “They’re going to be going not only to drop in during the day and interact with the kids, but also maybe one or two PTO meetings to meet the parents. We’re hoping to have some of our officers volunteer to go sit in the library and read to the different classes, eat lunch with them, play on the playground with the kids and be a part of their special programs when they have them. We want that officer to really envelop that school.”
Goode said he has been wanting to establish the program for years and is excited about the preliminary reactions from both officers and school administrators. While the program is still in the development stages, Goode said the possibilities are endless.
“It’s just really a versatile program,” he said. “You can do about anything you want to that you and the school agree on actually doing.”
Officers would be working in the schools strictly on a volunteer basis. Many officers who have heard about the program already have expressed an interest, but Goode said he hopes more will become interested as the program comes to light. Many of the officers got into policing because of the public service aspect of the job. Often the number of service calls restrict officers from spending time talking to community members, but Goode said he hopes this project will help change that.
While the program’s primary intent is to reach the students, Goode said he hopes the officers will benefit from the program as well.
“I’m hoping that it will be a great big morale booster for them once they get out with the kids and see how fun it is,” Goode said. “It’s like being on a weight program. You go on this program and lose a certain amount of weight and you start feeling better about yourself. You get more excited and you get more motivated to lose more. Once you get out there and get the kids excited about the police, get the kids excited about you and you get excited about the kids, you’re going to want more interaction. We’re hoping it’s going to develop a hunger you can’t get over.”
Kelly Foreman can be reached at kforeman@richmondregister.com or 624-6694.
