(Radio Iowa) – Some Iowa schools have had police officers walking their halls for decades, while others are new this fall to S-R-Os, or school resource officers. Le Mars police officer John Vickery covers that community’s five public school buildings as well as the Gehlen Catholic Schools. Vickery says law enforcement is -not- his primary concern.

“Making sure that everybody, the students, the staff here, and all of our buildings are safe,” Vickery says. “I’m doing my best to make sure all of our buildings are secured, that there’s really one main entry point for them while they’re here, to make sure that we can keep everybody safe in their learning environment.” Another priority as an S-R-O, according to Vickery, is to establish and cement good relationships with everyone he encounters.

“I’m here to try to build up relationships between the students, the staff and the police department, not only to benefit us here, while I’m in the schools, but also outside of the schools,” he says. “If they were to deal with an officer outside of the schools, we’ve built up some sort of relationship to better help them come to us with issues they may have, and also for us to be able to help them.” Vickery was the S-R-O when Le Mars Police launched the program in 2018 and he’s now beginning his third term in the position. Still, he says it takes time for students to get comfortable with a police officer in their school.

“At first, everybody was kind of reluctant,” he says. “They felt that I was here to enforce laws and to kind of crack down on everybody and they’re starting to realize more that I’m here for that relationship, for that safety side of things, and being able to just interact with them and let them get to know me. They’ll ask me all kinds of random personal questions, and for the most part, I’ll answer them.” Vickery says the most challenging part of his job is when he has to deal with students from a law enforcement perspective. He says good kids will sometimes make bad choices and while he tries to give them the benefit of the doubt, he still has a job to do.