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Guest column: SRO mostly to get to know our pupils
by Mike Colbert, School Board President · Op-Ed · July 21, 2016


West Branch schools will have a new School Resource Officer (SRO) beginning this fall!


Her name is Officer Cathy Steen and she is a current West Branch police officer. She has a masters degree in criminal justice, teaches criminal justice classes at Kirkwood Community College, has 16 years experience as a Johnson County deputy, has completed SRO training and is a mom to teenagers.

The SRO is not in response to an incident, scare, or increased enforcement. It is not intended to replace the dean of students. Police Chief Mike Horihan approached the school with this mutually beneficial opportunity. Her work with our students is another step in chief’s community-oriented policing strategies and her knowledge and resources are more tools in the box for our administrators and teachers.

Officer Steen will be in our schools 12 hours per week. She will primarily be focused on elementary and middle, but will also be at the high school. Her focus IS NOT security and enforcement, but rather programming, education, and relationship building.

The SRO position will be a 50/50 partnership between the City and the school. Officer Steen’s experience, resources, and presence will be made available for one year and a cost to the school of approximately $6,000 for the year, approximately 0.00075 percent of our budget. The partnership will be re-evaluated by both the school and the city at the end of the year before considering how to or if we move forward.

You will probably see her greeting students at the front door, walking around the halls between classes, and eating lunch with students.

Her focus is programming. You will probably see her in full uniform, casual uniform, and shorts and a T-shirt — both with and without her sidearm.

She is not there to “bust the kids.” She is there to get to know the students and for them to become comfortable and familiar with her. Having said that, she is a sworn Iowa law enforcement officer. If students choose to do something illegal, they can probably expect to deal with her — or any other on-duty police officer — in a different manner.

For the 750 students in our district, adding an SRO, particularly of Officer Steen’s caliber, is one approach to try something different and add additional resources for our students, teachers and administrators.



Mike Colbert is president of the West Branch Board of Education.