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Posted
May 2007
On
Friday March 6, 1987 Officer Steven Xiarhos
finished his last evening-shift patrol of Yarmouth.
On Monday March 9th he made history as the first school
resource officer in Dennis-Yarmouth
Regional High
School.
March 9, 2007 marks the 20th anniversary of the partnership
of the Yarmouth Police Department and the Dennis-Yarmouth Regional
School District. The new program would grow over the next
two decades into the longest running program in southeastern Massachusetts and has
expanded to serve other schools in the district and serve as a model to other
communities trying to establish their own program.
The
program was designed around a format used in the Sandwich
public schools. In the mid-1970’s officer
Mike Miller, who is now Sandwich Police Chief, was a serving full time in the
high school. The Sandwich
program lasted about a decade before being canceled in the mid 80’s.
At
that time the Yarmouth Police Department under Chief Robert Chapman was exploring
new ways to address issues at D-Y
High School. Michael Almonte,
now Deputy Chief of Police, was then Detective Sergeant assigned to work with
the school on finding the solution.
The main focus of the discussion was to introduce an undercover
officer into the high school.
Principal Curtis Collins had served at Sandwich High as an assistant
principal before coming to D-Y. He had
seen the effectiveness of a school based officer and he and Sergeant Almonte proposed the idea to Chief Chapman and Superintendent
of Schools, Dr. Michael McCaffrey. The
idea was not an easy sell, particularly to the community. There was resistance to having police in
the school but all involved in the effort saw that the benefits would be
great and hoped that the resistance would be short lived. The position was constructed as a half-time
post at the school, twenty scheduled hours per week, or five half-days. The other half of the time would be spent
following up on criminal investigations.
Steven Xiarhos was selected by a joint panel of school and police
leaders. His new assignment gave him
the title of detective and had him transferred from Patrol to that
division. A cost sharing arrangement
was set up where the school district would pay for the officer’s time
assigned to the school. Xiarhos’ work
was cut out for him. There was no
special training or any predecessor to give advice. The trail was his to blaze. To his surprise and relief, Mike Miller
called. The two spent some time
together and Miller, now reassigned to other duties at Sandwich PD, leant
some timely guidance from his considerable experience.
The
Yarmouth Program ran successful for several years, building the confidence of
the community inside and outside the school.
“Officer X” developed a
rapport with the students and relationship with the faculty that allowed him
to earn trust and operate effectively in what had not always been a welcoming
environment. In a short time the
police officer in the high school was part of the fabric of D-Y.
Even
with the unquestionable success of the program there was something
missing. 60% of the student population
at D-Y is from Yarmouth, the other 40% is from
the Town of Dennis. In mid-1994 the Dennis Police named its
first school resource officer, Craig Stevenson. This marked a time of change for the Yarmouth program. Stevenson’s assignment had him posted at D-Y High
School two days a week and at the Nathanial H. Wixon
Middle School in Dennis three days a week.
Xiarhos would now spend two days a week, the days Stevenson was at the
high school, at Mattcheese
Middle School. The moniker “D-Y P.D.” was coined by the newly formed team. June of 1994 would also mark the end of
Xiarhos’ seven and a half years in the schools. He returned to the patrol division where he
spent a short time on the road before he was promoted to sergeant. Nicholas Pasquarosa was selected to succeed
Xiarhos in the position and assumed the post in September of 1994.
The
title School Resource Officer, or SRO,
was adopted by the YPD and Pasquarosa was sent for a week of specialized
training offered by the National Association of School Resource
Officers.
In
1995 the Yarmouth Police received grant money to expand its school based
operations with the “Adopt-a-School” program.
Patrol officers volunteered to adopt one of the four elementary
schools in town to provide safety programs and SRO-like services as their
regularly assigned patrol duties allowed.
This supplemented the DARE
program that was in its early stages at the time.
The
original SRO program continued until 1996 when the school district faced a
significant budget shortfall and funding for the school resource officer was
reduced to just twelve scheduled hours.
The presence at the Mattcheese
Middle School was discontinued
indefinitely. The presence at D-Y
continued at three half-days a week.
In 1997 Yarmouth Chief of Police Peter Carnes, at considerable strain
to his budget, reinstated the 20 hour schedule to restore continuity of
services.
In
1998 Craig Stevenson left the school post to take an assignment as a
narcotics investigator. He was
succeeded by Officer Garvin Kelley who served at D-Y until 2001 when he was
offered a detective post. Detective
Kelley was replaced by Officer Greg Farnkoff, who
in addition to his SRO duties, serves as the Dennis Police sexual assault
investigator. Farnkoff
is the currently serving Dennis Police School Resource Officer.
The
Yarmouth Police Department had sought federal grant money over the past
several years to make the SRO at D-Y a full-time position and add a full-time
position at Mattcheese
Middle School. The department received the grant in
2003. This removed the position from
the Detective Division and reinvented the job description. Nick Pasquarosa was retained at the high
school and veteran patrol officer Bill Coughlan was selected for the
Mattcheese post. As required (and
funded) by the grant, both officers along with D-Y Principal Ken Jenks were sent to Atlanta, Georgia where they
received three days of training from the US Department of Education and
Department of Justice. The grant
expired in 2006. The Yarmouth Police
and D-Y School District worked out a cost
sharing plan to ensure the continuation of the program for the foreseeable
future.
The
school resource officer program has seen many versions and every officer
brought his own style and personality to the endeavor. Since 1987 there have been five police chiefs
between the two towns, five school superintendents, nine
principals of the schools served, countless assistant principals, thousands
of students and six school resource officers.
In that time the SRO has become a full-time job, Citizen Police
Academy has been taught
as a class at the high school, and the Rape Aggression Defense (RAD) program was introduced to the
student body and expanded to the community.
The Yarmouth/Dennis Police SRO team is currently engaged in a
comprehensive and ongoing security review of both D-Y district school buildings
and the Saint Pius X school that includes training for approximately 450
staff members and about 4,000 students.
Any
relationship is bound to have its ups and downs over the course of twenty
years but even in its deepest valleys the partnership between the Yarmouth
Police Department and the D-Y
School District, and
the high school in particular, has always been a strong one. It stands as an example, often envied, to other communities who wish face the challenges
in their schools in a cooperative and effective way. This long standing success has been
achieved through the commitment to partnership.
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