One thing that took place during the Danville City Council Public Services Committee meeting this past Tuesday evening was the renewel of the Danville Police Student Resource Officer (SRO) program with Danville District 118. As Police Chief Christopher Yates reminds us, it’s a three officer SRO program that’s been going on for 15 years: one at North Ridge Middle School, one at Danville High School, and one who splits time between DHS and Kenneth D Bailey Academy.
Audio PlayerAUDIO: It gives the students and a lot of the youth in Danville an opportunity to meet and learn a little bit about the officers in a non-emergency situation. And sometimes it just shows a different side of WHAT a police officer and WHO a police officer is. It creates and builds repor. Usually there’s a lot of fear with the unknown. And sometimes, when you get to know things, it’s not that scary after all.
Chief Yates says, every year the police department evaluates the SRO situation, as far as should the same person stay at their location or should a new person be rotated in. The chief says every time they advertise throughout the department about an open SRO position, there is always lots of interest.
