Arizona getting creative to fill school resource officer shortage, but is it working?

PHOENIX (AZFamily) —With the start of the new school year upon us, the safety of our students is at the top of our minds.

The state is pushing to add more school resource officers or SROs, but as Arizona’s Family Investigates has reported, the police officer shortage has made that challenging.

The Arizona Department of Education said it has more school resource officers this year and is using off-duty police officers to fill some of those positions through a new initiative.

Dozens of school districts across the state that couldn’t get an SRO because of the shortage are instead using school safety officers or SSOs. These are off-duty police officers who sign up for the assignment.

The Phoenix Union High School District—one of the largest high school districts in the country—brought back SROs following an incident in September 2022. Reports of an active shooter on the campus of Central High School sent students and staff running. Fortunately, no active shooter was found.

However, it took several months for the Phoenix Police Department to come up with officers to give them.

Arizona’s Family Investigates asked Mo Canady, the Executive Director of the National Association of SROs, about that shortage.

“That’s a real problem. It’s easy for me to advocate for an SRO in every school in the country, which I believe we should have,” he responded.

His group held their annual conference in Phoenix this week.

He explained SRO’s do more than security, they serve as informal counselors and build relationships with kids.

But this shortage has impacts. It meant some SROs in our state had to cover more than one school.

Arizona’s Family Investigates asked Canady if he believed that “they can be effective in that situation.” He answered, “It’s better than no SRO at all. But it’s very difficult to be effective when you’re having to move around to different schools.”

Craig Avery, an SRO at South Valley Junior High in Gilbert, knows that all too well. When he started in that position eight years ago, he was assigned to three junior highs and 30 elementary and charter schools.

“It’s good just to be within a specific set of admin, a specific set of board directors and faculty, kind of focus my efforts and not be spread so thin,” Avery said. “Way beyond just the safety of the school, being able to educate these kids,” he continued.

To combat the shortage, state lawmakers approved using off-duty police officers. These SSOs could be at a school one or two days a week and don’t have as much training as SROs.

The state tells us it’s starting the school year with 301 SROs, up from 214 last year. They’ve also got nearly 700 SSOs.

“With the implementation of the school safety officer program, it’s given other officers the opportunity to see what it’s like to be on school campuses,” Steve Dieu, the President of the Arizona SRO Association, said. He hopes it could lead more of them to consider the position full-time.

The Phoenix Union High School District said it would have four SROs and two SSOs for this upcoming school year. They’ll each be assigned to two schools, and the district explains that these SSOs will likely be different every day.

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