Save our School Resource Officer
Donation protected
Wilson Elementary School District is located in the inner city of Phoenix. We have a pre-K through third grade school and a fourth through eighth grade school both located on 30th street between Van Buren and Roosevelt in Phoenix, AZ. Even though we have one of the highest violent crime rates in all of Maricopa County within a half mile of our schools, the beat officers, CAO's other police task forces work very hard to reduce crime. Our SRO takes care of everything at our school, which allows the other officers to handle calls in the neighborhood and work to clean up the crime. Without our SRO, we will have to call crime stop which will pull these incredible officers off the street - and they already have enough calls on their plate.
Behind the playground at the 4-8 school is the State Hospital and prison (yes, behind our playground). Across from our primary school is a nude bar and down the street is Community Bridges (where people who are intoxicated are brought). On the other side of us, is the Federal Release Housing (sex offenders and such) as well as shelters, motels and yes, prostitution on Van Buren where our schools are located. Our community police officers are busy.
In spite of all of this, we have incredible schools, dedicated teachers and wonderful students. We have a great Phoenix Police Officer (SRO) to help keep our school safe - at least until May. Unfortunately, the state of Arizona Department of Education denied us a safe schools grant. Paradise Valley schools, Carefree Schools and Mesa schools are all getting new SRO's but we are losing ours unless we can raise $105,000 each year for the next 2 years. This dollar amount covers the cost to put a police officer on campus (the average salary for an SRO plus benefits and fees).
We have a teaching crisis in AZ. We are already short teachers and now I have great teachers thinking about leaving because they are worried about safety next year. On Friday, while the principal was at a conference, a parent stormed into our office to yell and scream obsenities about the principal because she was asked to come in for a meeting regarding her sons behavior. (The principal asked her to come in on the previous Monday, prior to the conference, and she appeared swearing on Friday!) We have filed 2 restraining orders this year already - 1 for a an abusive/belligerent parent and 1 for a transient who is harassing our crossing guards. This was after we removed another transient, who carries a knife, off all of the campuses (at different times) and after we found the dead body across the street. During the last few months, I have received two phone calls at 6am from our SRO asking to reroute the buses due to police investigations for homicides. Our SRO works closely with our community because they trust him. Community members have brought in children that are lost, a urn with ashes that they found, and reports of drug houses, all of which our officer gladly helped them with. He works closely with our neighborhood Community Action Officer and our beat officers to help get the information to the proper people. Together, they make our community safer. And this is just to name a few.....we keep our police officer busy! Yep, just a typical day in the inner city......good thing the state doesn't think that we need an SRO!
In addition to all the police work, our SRO teaches over 200 hours of law education each year, handles many of the complaints in the neighborhood, runs a club for 8th graders, goes on home visits with us (yes, we do home visits weekly) and sits in on many, many parent meetings as well as keeping 200 employees and 1300 students safe every day. Thank you for all you do, Officer Bales! We are going to do everything we can to raise the money to keep our campuses secure and allow us to focus on giving our students the very best education we can.
Behind the playground at the 4-8 school is the State Hospital and prison (yes, behind our playground). Across from our primary school is a nude bar and down the street is Community Bridges (where people who are intoxicated are brought). On the other side of us, is the Federal Release Housing (sex offenders and such) as well as shelters, motels and yes, prostitution on Van Buren where our schools are located. Our community police officers are busy.
In spite of all of this, we have incredible schools, dedicated teachers and wonderful students. We have a great Phoenix Police Officer (SRO) to help keep our school safe - at least until May. Unfortunately, the state of Arizona Department of Education denied us a safe schools grant. Paradise Valley schools, Carefree Schools and Mesa schools are all getting new SRO's but we are losing ours unless we can raise $105,000 each year for the next 2 years. This dollar amount covers the cost to put a police officer on campus (the average salary for an SRO plus benefits and fees).
We have a teaching crisis in AZ. We are already short teachers and now I have great teachers thinking about leaving because they are worried about safety next year. On Friday, while the principal was at a conference, a parent stormed into our office to yell and scream obsenities about the principal because she was asked to come in for a meeting regarding her sons behavior. (The principal asked her to come in on the previous Monday, prior to the conference, and she appeared swearing on Friday!) We have filed 2 restraining orders this year already - 1 for a an abusive/belligerent parent and 1 for a transient who is harassing our crossing guards. This was after we removed another transient, who carries a knife, off all of the campuses (at different times) and after we found the dead body across the street. During the last few months, I have received two phone calls at 6am from our SRO asking to reroute the buses due to police investigations for homicides. Our SRO works closely with our community because they trust him. Community members have brought in children that are lost, a urn with ashes that they found, and reports of drug houses, all of which our officer gladly helped them with. He works closely with our neighborhood Community Action Officer and our beat officers to help get the information to the proper people. Together, they make our community safer. And this is just to name a few.....we keep our police officer busy! Yep, just a typical day in the inner city......good thing the state doesn't think that we need an SRO!
In addition to all the police work, our SRO teaches over 200 hours of law education each year, handles many of the complaints in the neighborhood, runs a club for 8th graders, goes on home visits with us (yes, we do home visits weekly) and sits in on many, many parent meetings as well as keeping 200 employees and 1300 students safe every day. Thank you for all you do, Officer Bales! We are going to do everything we can to raise the money to keep our campuses secure and allow us to focus on giving our students the very best education we can.
Organizer
Cindy Campton
Organizer
Phoenix, AZ
