Watching Davie Police Officer Abbey Potvin high-fiving students, talking to them in the hallways, cafeteria, and classrooms, you get the sense that not only does she like her job, but the kids really like her as well.
“Building relationships with them, talking to them, mentoring them is a huge part of my day,” Potvin said.
She is the school resource officer, or SRO, at Indian Ridge Middle School in Davie. Potvin volunteered for SRO duty after the Parkland tragedy happened.
“I’m a mom, I’m a parent, so I have kids who go to school in Broward county and to me, it was really important that you have officers that want to be in the schools and want to be interacting with kids,” Potvin said.
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Education, Potvin says, is a key part of her job, so she’s often talking to the kids about the consequences of committing crimes. While she says she’s absolutely trained and willing to confront danger, the goal is to spot problems in advance. SROs are highly trained — not just to take down threats, but to notice kids who might be having mental health episodes and who might need a counselor’s help.
“Absolutely, these kids have no issues at all with coming to us and talking to us. You have to be that friendly face with them and build relationships, and once they see you talking to their friends, if they have any reservation about anything, they’re more apt to come to you and talk to you,” Potvin said.
As NBC6 reported last week, Broward County Public Schools has not paid a dime of reimbursement money yet this school year to the police agencies who provide the SROs patrolling their schools, and Wednesday, the school board chair told us that’s going to change soon.
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“This is a priority of the school board," said school board chair Lori Alhadeff. "We value our SROs."
Alhadeff expects the contract issues to be resolved within a few weeks because, she says, SROs play an irreplaceable role.
“They’re part of our behavioral threat assessments, they’re part of forming relationships with our students, so if our students see something, they say something,” Alhadeff said.
“This is supposed to be a safe environment, if you don’t have a safe environment here, why are they coming, they’re not gonna learn anything if they don’t feel safe,” Potvin said.
