Greencastle superintendent lauds School Resource Officer Program

A work in progress over a period of time.

That is how Greencastle Community School Corporation Superintendent Jeff Gibboney summed up the district moving towards getting a school resource officer.

While officers with the Greencastle Police Department were always in the buildings across the corporation, the district had not had a dedicated school resource officer until April, and Gibboney said things couldn't be any better. 

"Even before we had official school resource officers, we had school resource officers because GPD does such a great job of being visible and active within our parking lots and school facilities. It was a normal thing to walk into a school and see Officer Ed Wilson or another officer walking through our schools. We went live at the beginning of April with our school resource officer program. The beauty of it is our partnership with the Greencastle Police Department, so the officers working within our schools are people our community, faculty and students are very familiar with. I think, first and foremost, that is one of the key pieces of a successful program. Second, they have jumped right in from day one in getting acclimated walking the halls and building relationships with kids," Gibboney told The Putnam County Post. 

Since starting the program, the district has had an opportunity to meet K9 Gunner, and Gibboney admits it has been an "impactful" relationship.

"It has been nice to see the officers interact with the students and the kids interact with the officers. I was at a school and heard about Officer McDaniel coming in and reading to one of our classes and talking to the kids about literature. That is what we were looking for. It is been very positive," Gibboney said. 

Gibboney said building relationships is a critical component of the partnership between the school district and the police department. 

"Sometimes it is easy to overlook there is a person behind that badge. So much of what we see in the media or in society is the actual police duties that they are undertaking. It is nice to see the officers engage with our school community in a lot of those other things -- the relationship building, getting to know people, helping to de escalate situations, helping to be information sharers between agencies and being good communication tools. It brings that whole peace full circle to where we are all on the same page," Gibboney said. 

Gibboney said getting the program in place before the end of the school year will help the district prepare and fine tune ahead of the upcoming 2025-26 school year later this summer.

"As with anything new, I think there is always things you work to fine tune or make better and enhance and that is always our goal with anything we do. We have had several officers sharing the one full time position and we have sent two of them through the SRO Academy, and it is our goal to send others through that as well. In addition to being an officer, there are some different strategies for working in a school setting because the position is a little bit different. We look to continue to build on that and build on the relationship we have with those officers and GPD and further utilize their skillsets," Gibboney said, adding officers have had to jump in and help direct traffic with the ongoing Washington Street construction project.