SRO program in full swing at Port Chester Schools
December 19, 2024 at 2:35 a.m.
In full, bulky uniform, Moises Ochoa pointed to a cartoonish reindeer sticker on a tag hanging from a lanyard strapped to his vest.
He couldn’t speak to a favorite moment.
“It’s the overall experience, a collection of moments,” he said. “If you look in my car right now, I have all these little mementos the kids have given me. Little bracelets they’ve made, stickers or little drawings. I have a handmade envelope one of the kids gave me. They said it’s a Christmas present, so I’m waiting to open it up.”
After two months on the job as School Resource Officer working in the Port Chester School District’s elementary buildings, Ochoa has become the cool cop on the K-5 block. And so far, he said, it’s been fulfilling.
The School Resource Officer (SRO) program at Port Chester Schools has been fully implemented. After several months of discussion since it was first introduced in April 2023—which involved surveying the families and establishing an SRO committee—the Board of Education approved bringing police officers into the school community in January.
As Port Chester Schools are located in both the Villages of Port Chester and Rye Brook, the approved program sought to hire one SRO affiliated with the Rye Brook Police Department to work with the middle and high school, and another with the Port Chester Police Department to rotate among the four elementary schools.
Though the Rye Brook police were able to jump into participation quickly, getting Detective Orelvis Lazala into the halls by the end of February, the program didn’t become complete until this school year as the Port Chester police contract saw delays. Officer Ochoa started making his rounds in October.
Greg Austin, the recently retired Rye Brook Police chief who was instrumental in getting the SRO program together, suggested the initiative was a long time coming. He had been in on and off discussion with the district about it for over 10 years, but until recently, the financial burden of paying for the officers’ salaries and benefits had always been too much for the schools to carry.
District and police leadership recognized that not all community members were initially on board. A slew of research over the years has suggested SROs imply a mixed bag of consequences—concerns locally were raised about bringing racial bias in law enforcement into the buildings and perpetrating a “school-to-prison pipeline.”
“Superintendent (Aurelia) Henriquez worked very hard to get community support, though, and it was very good that she approached it the way she did,” Austin said. “It was interesting for me. As police chief, I always had community support in everything I did. But she went into it with the mindset of ‘we have no support, but we’re going to build it,’ and that’s exactly what she did.”
Through the focus groups and committee meetings held, Austin said the district and police developed an SRO program that is more community-built than any others he’d seen in his research. It’s the only district he knows of that has established and documented goals and objectives for the initiative.
And since its implementation, the district believes it’s been going well—administrators say they haven’t heard any negative feedback, and those who were once skeptical have changed their minds.
“There were certain expectations that were different than mine from several folks in the district, and I think the program is doing much better than many expected,” said Michael Dowd, the district security coordinator.
Blatantly, he noted that his lens is security oriented.
“I like the idea of having an officer in the schools. There was another school shooting just today,” Dowd continued, referring to an incident in Madison, Wisc., on Monday, Nov. 16 that left two people dead. “These school shootings we’re seeing now, the vast majority of them are from students inside the school. So, while I wholeheartedly believe putting in security vestibules and other tools to secure our schools from the outside is an important piece, security from the inside is just as important.”
“And I’ll just take it a step further and say, all school shooting research indicates that it’s about relationships,” added Superintendent Henriquez. And the SRO program at its core, she said, is designed around creating connections.
At Port Chester Schools, the emphasis of the SRO program seems to be on the “resource.” But what does the police officer role in the building look like?
Who are the SROs?
Ochoa described himself as the fun uncle. His German nieces and nephews, related through his wife, always run to him first when they visit, even though they can’t understand each other. He just has a way with the youth.
“I thought the opportunity to work with kids would be fun,” he said. But, more importantly, “I thought this would be a good opportunity to at least be more visible with the community in a positive way.”
Lazala, on the other hand, had been directly motivated to seek opportunities with youth since he was hired by the Rye Brook Police Department in February 2020. And when the SRO position started coming down the pipeline, it felt like it was a calling, simply due to his own life experience as a student in White Plains.
“I had such a positive time in high school, with my teachers and with my SRO that I had back then. That is what made me interested in going back to a school and giving back in a way that people gave to me,” he said. “When I became a police officer, my SRO gave me a letter of recommendation. And then I started the Explorers program over there, which actually showed me how to become a police officer.”
Both SROs at Port Chester Schools have backgrounds that the administration feels are fitting for the district. They were both English Language Learners, raised in Spanish-speaking households by immigrant families, and seem eager to use that experience to connect with the students.
Ochoa, specifically, also relates to the student experience directly—he was a student at Port Chester Schools himself.
“Just today, we were having a situation with a kid where he didn’t want to go back to class. It got to the point where the school staff is calling his parents to pick him up, and in the meantime, I’m just trying to keep him busy while we wait, doing simple math games with my hands and stuff,” he said. “We ended up waiting together in the upper building at JFK. And I told him, ‘Did you know, when I was in kindergarten, this was my classroom?’ And he was fascinated.”
Rye Brook Police Detective Orelvis Lazala walks through the hallways of Port Chester Middle School on Monday, Dec. 16. As a School Resource Officer for the district, he splits his time between the middle and high schools, aiming to be a mentor for students.By Sarah Wolpoff
“It gives us something in common,” he continued, “and the kids get a lot out of that.”
Before starting at the schools, the SROs attended an intensive five-day training period covering the work. Rye Brook Police Chief Eric Dengler, who has been actively involved with multiple Juvenile Officer associations, said the crux of those sessions is about defining roles police officers should have in a school community, reinforcing that they’re to be a trusted adult.
“The psychological aspect of it, that was very big,” Ochoa said. “Those classes were about trying to understand what might cause a kid to react in certain ways, how to help them, and things not to do. Because children are very smart, but they still lack the ability to reason. The way you’re dealing with an adult on the street, you can’t do that with a child, even if they look like an adult.”
With his new role, Lazala said he feels he’s working two different jobs with a common root. As a police officer, he’s responsible for telling people what to do, but as an SRO, he has the opportunity to show students what to do—guiding them in the right direction.
The day-to-day life
Families may have noticed Lazala and Ochoa at the schools in the morning. The students surely have—it’s how the cops start every day.
After that, they make their rounds in the building to ensure all entry points are locked and secured. In the process, they may wave into classrooms or walk and chat with students in the halls finding their way back to their lessons. Before they know it, the lunch periods will have begun—the prime time for fostering connections.
Ochoa said lunchtime is when he hears the gossip, when students will get competitive about who he sits with first. To him, the program seems successful thus far because of the way the children get sassy; pupils miss him when he’s eating at a different school building.
The elementary SRO program is relatively new, so “right now, I’m just getting a feel for it,” Ochoa said. “It’s a lot of people to get to know, it’s just me and four schools. I think the totality of this school year is going to be letting them get to know me.”
With more experience under his belt and a more complicated population to deal with, Lazala’s role in the middle and high schools looks different. While he tries to be present in the mornings and for lunch periods, he has other responsibilities on his plate as he looks to establish himself as a mentor.
During the day, he’ll participate in meetings with students, parents and counselors to help guide students toward positive paths. And after school, he tries to attend events and clubs—he’s been deeply involved with My Brother’s Keeper activities at the middle school.
“We envisioned an SRO who would have positive relationships with students, and we had no idea how positive it would be almost immediately,” Henriquez said, referring to Lazala. “We’ve had students going to him with information that allowed us to intervene before incidents occurred. So, it’s had a real positive impact on student discipline, in particular at the middle school and the high school.”
“I get it all the time,” Lazala said. “Kids come up and have the trust to say: ‘this is going on’ or ‘I’m having an issue with this certain thing.’ And it allows us to help them. They’re feeling that they’re able to come to me for help, and we can deter whatever bad thing was supposed to happen.”
He’s also started pushing into classrooms for programming—whether it’s teaching students about what to do when they get pulled over, or about the nuances of different laws in New York State.
“I’ve had a few lessons I’ve done about how to become a police officer, and that’s the biggest thing for me,” he said. He’s especially interested in inspiring the immigrant community, who may be coming from countries where policing is less noble than in the U.S. He’s already gotten a few students who have expressed interest in law enforcement involved in regional cadet and Explorer programs.
“Every time they see me, they’ll come talk to me about it and thank me for getting them in the programs,” he said. “This role has been fulfilling in so many ways. I get kids coming in and going out of their way to ‘hi.’ Or a few weeks ago, I was out for a little while, and they thought something happened to me and were asking if I’m OK.”
As an educational resource, Dowd said the SRO program is also making inroads with the staff, as the district utilizes their expertise for professional development days involving safety. And, he continued, they’re working with community partners outside of the district, allowing the SRO to be part of the “whole village” approach to the student experience.
“We wanted them to be a trusted adult,” Dowd said. “Someone people could go to for advice, a positive role model, and to really show the younger generation that the police aren’t who they are perceived to be, they’re actually people we need and should look up to.”
The impact and the future
“It really is nice to be able to help and show people that we’re not there to hurt them, that’s the best thing about this,” said Police Chief Dengler. He and Austin both have backgrounds that involved working with youth as law enforcement officials and therefore recall the significant value the positive presence of police in schools can have.
“I know the schools have always appreciated having us there, even if parents were a little skeptical, overall the schools appreciate it,” said Austin. “We’ve never gone into the schools to arrest kids; that has never been our intention. It has always been to help someone. And having someone in the schools, it shows the kids that the police are there to help. And I think it’s a benefit now that the kids have a police officer they can look up to as a role model.”
Several times, Ochoa spoke to the benefit of normalizing interactions with the police. When he first started in the schools, he recalled the unfortunate reality that some students had already recognized him—he had been to their homes before.
“And unfortunately, most people’s interactions with the police are not so great,” he said. “My hope is, kids having a positive interaction, hopefully they’ll take that with them for a lifetime.”
The Port Chester Police Department largely employs officers who are already familiar with the community, and Ochoa said that’s been an invaluable tool in deescalating situations. Often, interactions that could have been ugly were cooled because a police officer present personally knew the individual.
Ideally, beyond being a positive role model that helps steer students in the right direction, he hopes his presence in the schools will help the community by altering general perceptions.
“People tend to act aggressively when they feel threatened, and the uniform can seem threatening. If you have someone in crisis, or in a rage, or in a situation where they feel there’s no way out, if they’re interacting with a person or entity that they trust, the likelihood of defusing the situation is huge,” he said. “The children, I think this will help them a lot once they’re adults, assuming I do this right and have a positive influence on them. Because unfortunately, just statistically, at least one of these kids I’m dealing with today is going to have a negative interaction with the police one day. But if they’re able to go into it with a (trusting) mindset, that’s huge.”
Though no talks are official, there are discussions being had about expanding the program. Some would like to see more SROs incorporated into the schools, so the two officers available don’t have to spread themselves too thin.
“It’s been mentioned as a possibility,” Henriquez said. “As we enter budget season, I’m sure the Board of Education will be discussing not only the potential expansion, but the many other things associated with safety and security. It’s a discussion that I imagine will continue then.”
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