SHENANDOAH JUNCTION, W.Va. (AP) - A school bell rings and an uproar of teenage boys and girls pours into glistening hallways lined with vertical metal school lockers. The burst of energy and commotion quickens the pulse. Clusters of chattering students walk together during the scheduled class change. A few walk alone, eyes and heads drooping down.
It’s the first week of a new school year at Jefferson High School. And that’s where Sgt. Benjamin Williams, after 14 years as a police officer, is walking a new beat.
Dressed in a black commando-style police vest with a handgun and stun gun, Williams is no undercover cop here. He is watchful and ready for any possible hormone-fueled action that walks his way. But an important part of his job description is simply to listen and be a positive role model.
Part counselor, part teacher, part patrolman, Williams is the first police officer assigned to work full time in a high school in Jefferson County. With a $20,000 federal matching grant, Williams’ position is funded equally by the county government and the county board of education.
Berkeley County Schools has deployed police officers in its public high schools for several years. Until Williams started his new position last week, however, Jefferson County’s school district was the largest in the state without an in-school security officer, according to Jefferson County Sheriff Pete Dougherty.
As an on-campus deputy sheriff, Williams will work a regular teacher’s schedule of daytime hours. He will also participate in classroom and after-school activities with students, such as academic clubs, arts groups and sporting events.
“The program is geared toward mentoring,” Williams explained. “The importance that they place on it is positive interaction with the youth.
“The way the Sheriff put it is I’m part of the staff,” he added. “I’m faculty.”
PREPARING TO SERVE
This month Williams, a shooting instructor and SWAT team member for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, completed special week-long training under the Prevention Resource Officer Program, a program operated by the West Virginia Division of Justice and Community Services.
The program’s training included not only active shooter training and school safety protocols but also drug awareness training and juvenile justice laws. Some of the training dealt with various aspects of mobile phones that youth are heavily using, often innocently but sometimes for illegal activities, too.
“These kids know how to do more than I can even imagine,” Williams said, including mobile applications designed to hide online activities.
Williams remains simultaneously connected into both the school’s internal communications system and the county Sheriff’s Office’s dispatch system.
“I do still act as a safety outlet here,” he said. “I’m still a quick-reaction person. I’ll deal with all law enforcement incidents or problems that arise.”
Williams said working at the school in his standard public police uniform for street work was an intentional decision. Jefferson High Principal Sherry McCall Ross wants him to provide a visible, routine security presence inside the school of 1,600 students as well as for the public outside, which includes parking Williams’ marked police cruiser near the school’s front door, he said.
Williams said one of his goals for his new position as Jefferson High School’s resource officer is to foster better communication and relations between police and youth and the general public. He said police were once considered approachable and trusted. However, today, too many youth are intimidated by police, he said.
Allowing students to interact with him in uniform also can give the youth more confidence to approach and interact with other police officers outside of the school, Williams added.
“If they can interact with me in this manner in the same uniform, hopefully on the street they’ll be able to interact with the same police officers in the same way because they’re dressed the same,” he said. “There’s no difference between us.”
TEACHING AND LEADING
As part of his participation in the state Prevention Resource Officer Program, Williams will file monthly reports to state officials on his activities and student interactions.
“I’m required to get involved in their studies when I’m able to bring something from my experience into the classroom,” Williams pointed out. “That’s been offered to every teacher in the school.”
In that way, Williams is being encouraged to teach some classroom lessons here and there, to relay to students his real-world experience as a police officer. Teachers have already asked him to think about sharing his firsthand knowledge and perspective on various topics, he said.
For civics classes, Williams plans to teach about the law, policing and individual rights.
“A phenomenal idea, I think, is to educate students on their rights, their rights as an American citizen - what they can and can’t do, appropriate ways to act out in the community that you’re protected under the law,” he said. “That was something that was just brought up in conversation.”
In health classes, he expects to talk about the harmful effects and consequences of using drugs and alcohol he has witnessed firsthand. For English classes studying John Steinbeck’s novel about displaced ranch workers in “Of Mice and Men,” he is particularly excited about the idea discussing different cultures he has encountered on the streets of Jefferson County.
Williams said he also plans to tap his contacts in law enforcement and at other agencies to help outside experts contribute to classroom learning experiences.
Married with four boys ages 1 to 15, Williams also brings experience to the job as an ordained youth pastor at Rock Spring Church in Kearneysville. From his work with youth at his church, he said he has learned that challenges and struggles that might appear small or minor to adults can feel significant - even overwhelming - for young people.
“It may be the simplest thing to us, but it’s so complex to them,” he explained. “We don’t listen because we feel it’s unimportant, but yet it could be the end of the world for them. But if we listen to them, let them get it out, we can help them put their foot forward and just keep going.”
A NEW CULTURE FOR KIDS
At 35, Williams readily remembers enjoying his own public high school years in Winchester, Virginia. There, he was an active student. He played on the school’s basketball team all four years. He also traveled singing in concert and show choirs.
After high school Williams went on to earn a bachelor’s degree from Mountain State University. More recently, while working full time as a sheriff’s deputy, he earned a master’s degree in Christian ministries from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Williams said he remembers coping with peer pressures in high school, as well as knowing other students involved with alcohol or marijuana. But he said recognizes that the culture and society affecting today’s high schoolers has changed considerably since he was a teenage student.
“The things that they’re dealing with are well over my head,” he said. “We’ve got youth that are passing away in this community. The heroin issue is not just attacking adults. It’s attacking kids, and these kids feel it, see it, they deal with it.”
Earlier this month Williams participated in the extensive security provided for a first-degree murder trial at the Jefferson County courthouse. The trial dealt with four young men who had recently graduated or were still enrolled in Jefferson County’s two high schools when they were involved in a drug-related killing of another former county high school graduate.
“All that kept going through my head was - because this is just the way my mind thinks - ’These are all kids,’” Williams said. “These are all kids. Both sides are crying. Both sides are upset, distraught. Nothing is ever going to fix this issue.”
Williams said he wants to help students speak up when necessary to encourage their friends and classmates to steer clear from harmful activities and poor decisions that they know can only lead to serious trouble and heartache.
“They need to be bold enough to stand up for what’s right and what they know is right,” Williams said of youth today. “They can change it. They’ve got to want to change their environment, change their friends and value their friends, more than just allowing them to continue to walk that walk and stop them and say, ’Hey, look, you need help.’”
MESSAGES FOR STUDENTS, PARENTS
The main thing Williams said he wants Jefferson High School students to know is that he is approachable. It’s OK to say hello, ask him questions or talk about activities at the school. His office will always be open to any student who wants to talk, or even to blow off steam, he said.
“I’m here to get involved,” he said. “I want to be involved.”
For parents of students, Williams wants them to know that he is in the school for the student’s safety and well-being, not as a rules enforcer or disciplinarian.
“I’m not here to follow these kids around and throw the book at them and to lock every student up in here,” he said.
“Here, I’m going to be with these students every day so I’m going to have an opportunity to get to know their personal situations, their circumstances and the things that they’re experiencing, and maybe able to provide some help and guidance,” he continued. “And if I can’t provide the guidance, I may be able to point them in the right direction to somebody who can get them help.”
Williams said much of his work this year will help set a solid foundation for the Prevention Resource Officer Program at Jefferson High. If the position’s role becomes constructive and provides a stable presence for students and faculty there, the program will do its part in helping the school prepare local youth to embark on productive lives as adults.
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Information from: The Journal, https://journal-news.net/
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