COUNTY STUDENT RESOURCE OFFICERS WORK TO KEEP CITRUS COUNTY CHILDREN OUT OF
HARM'S WAY

Multi-Tasker Only Begins To Describe A Citrus County School District's
Student Resource Officer

SROs can act as teachers, counselors, safety consultants and law
enforcement officers - sometimes all before lunchtime.

The SROs even referee parents battling child custody issues.

"They're using the school as the tug-of-war zone," Sgt. Kevin Purinton
explained to school board members during a presentation Wednesday.

Purinton and Lt. James Martone oversee the Citrus County Sheriff's SRO
program, which has been a part of the county's educational system since 1985.

This year, 12 deputies work exclusively in area schools, with one stationed
at each middle and high school and one for every two elementary schools.

"This is the best SRO program in the state of Florida - no question,"
school board attorney Richard "Spike" Fitzpatrick said.

This summer the program was named a model SRO agency by the National
Association of School Resource Officers, one of four in Florida.

Through the years, the Citrus program has grown and been refined to provide
innovative and successful safety and education to children, Purinton said.

The three main functions of the SROs are to enforce laws and school rules,
counsel students and instruct on safety issues.

The training begins in the first grade with the Junior FOCUS program, which
stands for Filtering Out Crime United with Students.

"A lot of kids didn't know basic safety," Purinton said. "We found out that
kids didn't know they shouldn't answer the door without knowing who it is."

They go over stranger danger, kitchen and telephone safety, and other basic
safety skills.

In third grade, the deputies teach the Child Lures program, which was
developed by a journalist who interviewed almost 2,000 sexual predators and
pedophiles. He used the information he learned to teach children the common
lures criminals use such as showing affection, asking for help finding a
pet, bribery, acting like a hero, or using authority.

"Children love to help people," Purinton said, after showing board members
a video where a man lures away a boy by asking for help finding his dog.

While SROs teach children to run away from potentially dangerous people and
tell an adult what happened, Purinton believes they may need to begin
teaching children minor defense tactics such as screaming.

"Is it foolproof? No," Purinton said.

Jessica Lunsford, a third-grader at Homosassa Elementary School, was
abducted from her home last spring, raped and murdered.

"Jessica Lunsford went through this training," Purinton said. "Most people
think they are secure in their own homes."

In fifth grade, the children get the full FOCUS program, which replaced the
older Drug and Alcohol Resistance Education, DARE, program in 2000.

FOCUS aims at giving students a common understanding of the effects of
drugs on people, self-esteem awareness, how to resist gangs and violence,
consequences and cyber safety.

Purinton said middle school is when many children begin experimenting with
drugs and alcohol, and they want to reach them beforehand.

"We believe in early intervention," Purinton said.

Once in middle school, the SROs teach Project Alert, a substance abuse
prevention program.

The SROs work, not only to motivate the children from using drugs, they
teach the pre-teens how to resist peer pressure.

"You just can't tell them to say 'no' anymore," Purinton said. "You have to
teach them how to say 'no.'"

In high schools, the SROs are more flexible and respond to what the
teenagers are up to.

"As trends develop in our county we are very flexible to changing and
adapting," Purinton said. "The role of the SRO is ever-changing."

The deputies focus on educating on driver safety, resisting drugs,
ATM/credit card safety and what the age of consent is for sex.

"We're finding our No. 1 drug charge in high school is possession of
marijuana," Purinton said.

Last year, 30 children were arrested for possession of marijuana - 38 were
arrested the year before.

Currently, the SROs are working to update and unify school lockdown
procedures, update safe school plans, conduct unified training drills with
other emergency agencies, increase digital surveillance and work on bus
transportation safety.

"We're becoming safety consultants for the school system," Purinton said.

One technology update that has become a great asset to SROs is that each
school site has a computer that allows the deputies to access school floor
plans and check criminal backgrounds.

They also hope to have an SRO at each school site by 2010.

"Hopefully, in five years," Martone said, "with support we'll get there."