It was the morning of the first day back from spring vacation, and School Resource Officer Kathy Oelschlegel already had an incident on her hands.

She was meeting with a student, who had been assaulted over the break. He had brought a knife into school to protect himself, but decided he wanted to turn it over to her.

“It was over a girl,” she said about the fight.

The variety of issues that Oelschlegel deals with on a daily basis at the high school is vast, from suspicious vehicles to stolen iPods. According to Chief Bill Baker, the school’s police needs make her position a necessary one.

But funding for the school resource officer in next year’s budget is still up in the air, and will be the subject of a discussion at the City Council Finance Committee’s final budget meeting Monday.

First, the school superintendent removed funding, then the mayor replaced the position as part of the city budget. Now, it’s up to the City Council to decide whether it stays.

Westbrook High School Principal Marc Gousse said when it came time to put the high school budget together, he felt he had to chose between the school resource officer and one of the two assistant principals.

Though Gousse said the resource officer is undoubtedly useful, the assistant principals serve more functions at the school.

“Where are you going to get the most bang for your buck?” he said.

Gousse said he was pleased to see Mayor Bruce Chuluda had reinstated the position as part of the police department’s budget, which is where he always believed it belonged.

However, School Committee member Alex Stone said if the schools and the School Committee already think the position, which would cost the city $53,053, is not worth funding, the mayor shouldn’t be spending the money on it either.

“The city has the same problem we do,” Stone said, referring to this year’s budget crunch. “Why are we adding this back in if the people who are supposed to have the position don’t want it?”

According to Baker, the school resource officer is in place because schools have a need for police, and, if patrol officers are busy with city-wide problems, an issue at the school might take a back seat.

“I don’t want the school to have to wait if there’s an out-of-control student,” he said about why he is supporting funding the position out of his department’s budget.

For more than a year, Oelschlegel has served as the school resource officer, with a salary of $46,074. Though she said part of her job is to report thefts at the school and accidents in the parking lot, she’s also there to create a positive image of police officers for the students.

She said she likes to joke around with them and talk sports. Many come to her, too, with personal issues – anything from paying a traffic ticket to dealing with an eating disorder. Others will inform her about drug activity among other students.

“A lot of our day is just counseling kids,” she said.

As students pass through the hallway, Oelschlegel stands by, greeting them, as she listens for talk of parties and watches hands for exchanges of drugs or weapons.

“I keep my eyes and ears peeled,” she said.

Though some students don’t look her in the face, others are excited to see Oelschlegel. Two boys perked up as they passed her in the hall.

“That’s my posse,” she said as they walked by. The boys want to be police officers themselves, she said, and sometimes, she’ll let them tag along with her during their study halls.

When students are in class, Oelschlegel checks doors at the ends of the building to make sure they’re secure. She stops into the daycare that’s run by vocational school students and checks in with the credit union across the hall.

“It’s like a little city,” she said.

If the position ends up being funded by the police department, Baker said he envisions Oelschlegel spending more time at other schools, as well. And there is a need. Recently, he said, a middle school student assaulted several faculty members.

Despite the choice to remove funding for the position from the school budget, both the principal and the superintendent say Oelschlegel has done a great job in the high school and is valued.

“It absolutely has nothing to do with performance,” said Superintendent Stan Sawyer. “Our budgets are very lean this year… We felt we could cut down a little bit on the administration we had at the school.”

School resource officer Kathy Oelschlegel talks with Chantal Mukinanyana, 19, and and Rinecaroline Kodirekka, 18, after school Monday. She says a lot of her job is forming personal relationships with students.

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