Maine Celebrates Fourth Anniversary of Revolutionary School Resource Officer Training Program

This summer, the Maine Department of Education (DOE) Maine School Safety Center hosted its annual School Resource Officer (SRO) Certification program for a fourth year. This training is a first-of-its-kind program that the State of Maine, along with its many partners and stakeholders, has been building from the ground up since 2021.

SRO training allows SROs to earn a certification or re-certification, based on common standards specific to police officers who work in schools. Maine's SRO training is special because of its unique curriculum, which centers around the whole child. It is taught by current SROs and educators across Maine, and that provides instant access to mentors and collaborators for those entering the field.

"One of the highlights of having a Maine SRO co-teach each of our classes is that when they are finished, they will know around a dozen SROs in their area who can help them from the start," Robert Susi, Maine School Safety Center Director, and a former Maine SRO of 30 years, said.

In 2020, the Maine Criminal Justice Academy contacted the Maine DOE to assist with the creation of a Maine SRO program as an alternative to the more-expensive National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) training. At the time, NASRO was the only option for police officers working in Maine schools.

The Maine School Safety Center and the Maine Criminal Justice Academy partnered to offer a training specific to Maine that would be more affordable for districts and local police departments. The goal was to provide programming responsive to the unique needs of Maine schools and students and to help improve the relationship between law enforcement, students, and their families.

"The curriculum had to be developed and then approved by the Board at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy," said Susi, who has been at the helm of this initiative since the beginning. "The first class of Maine's SRO training was in the summer of 2021."

The training itself happens over a two-week period in the summer when participants visit the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro to engage in learning with instructors and presenters who specialize in areas like brain science and development, learning and emotional intelligence, trauma-informed practices, restorative practices, behavioral threat assessment, food insecurity, homelessness and McKinney-Vento policy, foster care, substance abuse, bullying (including cyberbullying), and teen suicide.

"SROs need to learn that they operate in the school as a resource, first and foremost," Susi said. "This program is unique in that it is taught by a collaboration of Maine resources, with a decided focus on Maine issues and schools."

"Integrating brain science and emotional intelligence into SRO training is critical for assisting officers with the knowledge and information needed to build trust, connection, and 'felt safety' with youth of all ages," Maine DOE Social Emotional Learning Specialist Kellie Doyle Bailey said. "When officers understand the brain's stress response and dysregulated nervous system states, they are better equipped to offer co-regulatory, trauma-informed de-escalation strategies."

Participants also take classes on policymaking, building trust, mentoring, classroom management, responding to school threats, juvenile criminal law, and school emergency management. As SROs complete the training, they engage in group discussions with other SROs and content specialists about complex issues they encounter in their roles.

Maine DOE Behavioral Threat Assessment/Mental Health Coordinator Karen Barnes is a regular presenter at the training. She discusses instances when student distress may manifest in behaviors that indicate movement toward acts of violence.

"SROs learn how to recognize signs at the earliest point possible that a student may be on the pathway to violence and connect them with supports and services to remove them from that pathway," Barnes said.

"Not only are we introducing police officers, who are new to the SRO role, to terms and principles like 'social emotional learning' and 'brain science'; we're also sharing information on special education laws and topics like threat assessments," Renee Bernard, an instructor of the program, as well as a long-time SRO and a police detective, said. "These are all relevant topics in our current school climates."

The Maine DOE Maine School Safety Center and the Maine Criminal Justice Academy do the bulk of the coordinating for this training, but a number of other partners help to make it possible: the Maine DOE Offices of School and Student Supports and Special Services and Inclusive Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, the York District Attorney, the Maine Department of Corrections, the Maine Department of Public Safety, Cumberland County Child Advocacy Center, the Maine Information and Analysis Center, and York Hospital. Local school administrators and current SROs also support the training every year by presenting and being available to trainees.

"This program, to me, represents what I think the foundation of police reform should rest on," Deputy Justin Onofrio, the SRO for RSU 56, said.

A graduate of the program, Onofrio says this training helped him understand how mental health and childhood trauma directly impact behavior and the relevance of that dynamic to SROs and police officers.

"Having this insight into who and what motivates an individual to act in such an unregulated way provides so much in terms of de-escalation," Onofrio said.

The Maine School Safety Center has incorporated feedback from current SROs and training participants over the years to expand and develop the program to meet Maine's unique needs. One way they have changed the program is by bringing in current SROs from all backgrounds and regions of the state to help participants feel supported.

Participants who complete this course, as well as a six-month peer mentoring training program, are eligible for the Maine Criminal Justice Academy Certification as an SRO.

Since its inception, this program has trained, certified, and re-certified 68 SROs serving in Maine schools. It has also started to change the landscape of traditional relationships between Maine schools, students, and law enforcement by equipping SROs with the resources, knowledge, and support needed to help prevent school violence and to connect students and families with the support they need to thrive in Maine classrooms.

"If we are all working together toward the same goal, we have a much greater chance of supporting SROs in their roles," said Barnes.

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