School house rocked – an SRO problem
As we all prepare for the upcoming holiday season, students across the country are also getting excited to have several weeks off school. This time of year, social media teems with holiday party photos, grade or sports accomplishments, band concerts, club activities and award ceremonies. We believe this is a great time for parents to talk to their children about a variety of school topics, now that they have a half a year under their belt. This includes tough conversations too.
Schools and other educational establishments are meant to be safe places for our children to grow, learn, and develop into independent adults. However, schools can also be a perfect environment for predators who groom and facilitate inappropriate relationships with students, which may lead to sexual abuse.
The staff of your average public school is comprised of many adults who encounter students for a limited basis or purpose. Beyond teachers and administrators, schools often hire or subcontract with school resource officers (SROs), coaches, related service providers for special education students, food service, and janitorial services. While there are supposed to be strict policies and procedures for how adults are to interact with students – including not sending private texts, DMs or social media messages to students, not being alone with students behind closed doors, or engaging in sexually explicit conversations – the lines sometimes get blurred, and these “one-off” incidents may be discounted and swept under the rug.
An article from The Washington Post detailed just how real these dangers can be.
The article detailed how former SRO Deputy Jamel Bradley used his position of power at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, SC, to groom and sexually abuse teenage girls. The article also stated that Bradley had been the subject of at least five complaints during his nine-year tenure at Spring Valley High for acting inappropriately with students. The most recent complaint involved a 15-year-old girl who reported to authorities that SRO Bradley sexually assaulted her in his office in the middle of the school day.
SRO Bradley pled guilty to two state felony charges: criminal sexual conduct in the third degree and sexual battery with a student 16 or 17 years of age. Under South Carolina law, the charges carry a maximum potential sentence of 15 years in prison. Bradley was sentenced to three years of probation, with five years in prison suspended, under the terms of his plea agreement with state prosecutors; meaning that he will not be incarcerated despite admitting to the sexual contact with minors in open court.
Certainly, the victims of SRO Bradley can seek further justice in the civil courts, an area I have experience in, but given the gravity of offenses levied against him, the proverbial slap on the wrist from the criminal system is shocking, in my opinion.
Sadly, the victims in this case are not the only ones who have been abused by an SRO in the school setting.
A disturbing pattern of sexual abuse in schools
During its investigation, The Washington Post identified more than 200 elementary, middle and high school resource officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022. The newspaper concluded that the Justice Department, local school districts and law enforcement agencies have failed to do enough to prevent sexual misconduct.
For example, in February of 2024, the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office in Pennsylvania arrested and charged Jordan Jones, a former SRO in Abington Township, PA., with institutional sexual assault, endangering the welfare of children, and corruption of minors for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old student at Abington High School.
Some of these officers had faced prior complaints of flirting, texting or touching students – classic examples of pushing professional boundaries to facilitate an inappropriate relationship. These reports were often downplayed by supervisors as little more than a cop working to earn a student’s trust. In the case of SRO Jones, the inappropriate relationship began when he asked the student to walk his dog, which allowed them to begin seeing each other outside of school grounds. SRO Bradley was known for giving hugs to female students specifically, giving passes to leave class to come “hang out” in his office, and meeting students after school hours.
A question of supervision
Because SROs are generally police officers from a local law enforcement agency contracted to be in the school during the school day, they are typically assigned and supervised by their departments rather than their school’s administrators. Since SROs are often not official school employees, and instead employees of their local law enforcement, some of these individuals may exploit this complicated arrangement to their advantage.
As such, school administrators, who may be the first to learn of inappropriate behavior with minor students, frequently have no authority or even ability to investigate and discipline officers on their campuses, even when their individual school districts help fund those positions. Similarly, the Justice Department, which has also provided hundreds of millions of dollars for school police programs, hasn’t given enough guidance to law enforcement on how to prevent sexual misconduct by SROs.
This situation can be further complicated when SROs are charged with mentoring “troubled students” which may blur the appropriate lines between their charged job duties and expectations, as well as allow them access to vulnerable students.
How do we protect children?
School resource officers often have unfettered access to vulnerable children with few guardrails or oversight. This can be a terrifying situation for a parent/guardian, but there are things you can do to help protect children.
- SROs should never be permitted to text or message students on social media.
- Parents should instruct their children not to be alone behind closed doors with their SROs, teachers, or coaches.
- Any SRO mentoring should occur during the school day and on school grounds.
- While a fist bump or a high five may be an appropriate example of physical touch, hugs or comments about a student’s physical appearance are not.
- Parents should inquire with their local school district as to whether their SRO undergoes any specialized training to ensure that appropriate boundaries are maintained (over a third of states have no SRO training requirements).
- Remember to express your concerns and advocate for change in the system—school board meetings can be an effective tool for this.
- Talk to the children in your life about inappropriate touching and inappropriate relationships with adults; start this conversation at an early age.
To learn more how to have these important conversations visit: