Watertown SRO talks fostering relationships, keeping students safe at Case Middle School

Jun. 27—WATERTOWN — Going into her 10th year with the Watertown Police Department, having previously served 10 years in the Army, Amanda L. Mackey embarked on a new adventure this year as the school resource officer for Case Middle School.

Her first year working in the school environment has been an adjustment, but as she finished out the year, she said it's been a great experience so far.

According to the National Association of School Resource Officers, SROs are specifically trained full-time law enforcement officers with sworn law enforcement authority specializing in "school-based policing and crisis response and assigned by the employing law enforcement agency to work in the school using community-oriented policing concepts." The goals of SRO programs include providing safe learning environments, providing resources to school staff members, fostering positive relationships with students and developing strategies to resolve problems affecting students so that they can reach their fullest potential.

"I would say it's the most rewarding thing that I've done so far in law enforcement," Officer Mackey said. "It's completely different from being road patrol and took a little getting used to, but overall, just being able to be here with the kids and interact with them and hopefully bridge that gap between law enforcement and youth, it's rewarding."

Officer Mackey says her No. 1 responsibility at the school is the safety and security of the students. In the event of a school emergency, such as an active shooter scenario, she noted it would be her responsibility to make sure the threat is eliminated. But she says her second priority is bridging the gap between law enforcement and the students.

If the door to her office is open, that means kids can come in to talk. When Officer Mackey first started at the school, she visited classes to talk to students and tell them about herself and how to contact her. She said they'll reach out by email if they think there's a safety concern, whether they heard something or if something's been posted on Instagram, TikTok or Snapchat that needs her attention. She said that as the year has gone by, it seems like students are getting more comfortable coming to her office to tell her about concerns.

"It's nice being able to leave work and feel like you've made a difference because all officers, when you ask us when we interview for this job what we want to do, it's almost always we want to help people," Officer Mackey said. "Ultimately, when you're patrolling, you don't get that aspect when you go home and you feel like you've accomplished something or you've built a relationship with someone, because most people don't like the police. So it's nice being in this environment."

She said she wants the students to feel comfortable enough to talk to her, and hopes they'll remember that positive interaction with law enforcement if they ever need help from the police as adults.

Officer Mackey said she's not sure if parents know she is available as a resource for them as well as for their children. If they are having issues or if there are concerns about student safety, she said they should feel free to contact the school to reach out to her.

"I think having Officer Mackey here gives the students not only a sense of security, but it also gives them a sense of awareness that the school is working hard to keep us safe on all aspects," said Mark L. Taylor, principal at Case. "She has worked really hard this year to make it so the kids see her not just as a school resource officer, but as someone that they can go to for help or guidance. She's got a very welcoming presence to her where she makes students feel comfortable and I feel she has that same effect on parents."

Mr. Taylor said he is appreciative of the school board for supporting the SRO position and allowing for an officer to be dedicated to Case Middle School.

Officer Mackey said she hopes she'll be allowed to stay at Case as long as possible, saying she's interested in seeing the kids grow up and move on to high school, as well as meeting the new students who arrive at Case. With two children of her own, both eighth graders who attend Indian River, she said she sometimes recruits them to decipher what the kids at school say. She said that while Urban Dictionary has become a valuable resource, it's ironic that some of the things kids say are things she used to say herself at their age.

Officer Mackey attends district sporting events, made easier when her kids and Indian River compete against Watertown. Having played the flute from fifth grade to her senior year, Officer Mackey also said she approached the band teacher and asked to play with the kids during band class, which is held each day and rotates between seventh and eighth grades.

"I've played with them consistently this whole year, and they actually allowed me to be in the concert as well which I thought was really cool," she said. "And it was a shame that my family lives in Florida because my mom was super stoked that she could have gone to another concert because it was supposed to be the end in 1997, yet here I am 43 sitting with a bunch of kids playing my flute. It gave me one way to get in and connect with the kids because they're a tough crowd. You've gotta break that barrier."

Officer Mackey also gets to go into classrooms, as part of her job is to educate. Every month she puts out a message that she's available to talk about anything relating to safety and law enforcement that teachers might want her to discuss with students.

Joking with her co-workers at the police department, Office Mackey said she'll ask what they did on a given day and get responses related to fraud complaints and domestic incidents, to which she responds with her activities — playing kickball or flute in the band room.

She also said her co-workers are a bit jealous of her hours, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., as opposed to the hours for road patrol, which are 12-hour shifts. Though Officer Mackey does get to chaperone events like the eighth grade boat dance or Water Safari, the job of an SRO isn't all fun and games.

While she said she isn't at the school for disciplinary actions, if something is criminal, or if a student does something that can potentially get them arrested as an adult, the school will contact her to come in and talk to them.

"If charges can be pursued, that's another thing that I do here," Officer Mackey said. "A lot of the kids didn't know that they could be arrested at this age for misdemeanor and felony offenses. When we first started school, the whole TikTok challenge with the stealing stuff from school, I went into classrooms and let them know, 'Hey, if you're caught stealing, that is considered petit larceny under New York State Penal Law and at this age it's a misdemeanor. You can be arrested for it.' So I'm able to educate them in that aspect too, so they don't think they're untouchable because they're juveniles."

She said there have been altercations at the school that resulted in injuries and she's pursued assault or possession of stolen property charges.

According to Superintendent Patricia B. LaBarr, the district started with a school SRO, to the best of her knowledge, in March 2007, and ended up adding another to the budget last summer, the position that Officer Mackey fills. Along with Officer Mackey at Case and Officer Josh Davis at the high school, Officer Shane Ryan is the current D.A.R.E. officer, who is not funded by the district like the other two.

"Safety is the first priority for all school districts, and they are a tremendous asset to the district for many different lenses," Mrs. LaBarr said. "We had a student that made a threat back in January, and Officer Mackey got involved right from the very beginning. She was actually able to get court orders to be able to dig in further to figure out where the social media threat came from and we were able to identify the student and respond appropriately. They're invaluable because we don't have the resources and tools to be able to do some of those things that they're able to do to support us."

With officers Davis and Mackey under contract with the district, as outlined in an appendix of the draft of the district safety plan available on its website, their one-year contracts were approved last week during the school board meeting.

A total of $180,000 has been budgeted by the district for the two officers, working out to approximately $90,000 per officer. Mrs. LaBarr said that once the city approves the SRO contracts on their end at a meeting July 5, a fresh copy will be uploaded online with any updates. The school SRO agreement is for one officer primarily at Watertown High School and one primarily at Case, but as outlined in the contract, they also are responsible for being available as needed at the district's elementary schools.

Part of classroom education and prevention, Officer Mackey works on DWI lessons involving drunk goggles, which visually simulate the effects of alcohol impairment. She said the exercise is a good way to start talking about alcohol abuse. She also tries to speak to students about the dangers of vaping.

Officer Mackey said she goes into study halls a lot — there are only two students who have beaten her at Connect Four so far. She also visits the ISR room, which is for in-school suspension, sometimes talking with students about why they're there and how they can avoid future visits to the room.

She also talks to kids about what they need to do now if they're interested in law enforcement as a possible career. As for her own interest in the field, Officer Mackey said all the credit goes to her mother, Lorri E. Holland, who used to love reading True Detective magazines and true crime novels. Although Officer Mackey said she wasn't allowed to read them, when her mother was done with the books she would often sneak them away to read.

"Just seeing the closure that law enforcement gave for the families of those books, it's just something that's always stuck with me," she said. "I was like, 'I would love to be able to be part of an organization that's something bigger than myself.' And now I am."