WISCASSET

By 8:30 a.m. on a recent Wednesday, the halls of Wiscasset High School were almost silent. A truant student hurrying in the front entrance grinned as he passed School Resource Officer Perry Hatch. “Hey, you finally made it,” Hatch joked, holding the door open for the late arrival.

Three weeks into Wiscasset’s first year as a stand-alone school district after withdrawing from Regional School Unit 12 on July 1, the new SRO position is one of many “firsts” for the Wiscasset School Department.

“The schools have never had an SRO and I have never been an SRO,” said Hatch. “We’ve never done this before, so we’re writing the book.”

Hatch joined the Wiscasset Police Department in 2011. Prior to that, he served in the U.S. Army and was a state trooper for 23 years. In July, Hatch received advanced certification for the SRO position through two courses offered in Portsmouth, N.H.

The job of an SRO is to “provide a safe, secure environment conducive to learning,” said Hatch. “If the kids are comfortable and safe and the teachers are comfortable and safe, and they want to be here — the teachers are going to want to teach, the kids are going to want to learn. That’s really the goal.”

Working to achieve this, Hatch is in Wiscasset’s schools — currently the primary, middle and high schools — Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Hatch greets students as they arrive in the morning, he eats lunch with the primary students or walks outside on the track with the high school students, he maintains a presence in the halls between classes, and fills in for teachers during study halls.

“So far, it’s been great,” said Hatch. “Some kids were leery at first seeing a cop walking the halls, wondering ‘What’s he doing? Is he watching me?’ … that kind of thing.

“Now, the tension has eased,” he added. “As (students) get more comfortable and realize when they talk to me it is confidential — I’m not judging them or ratting them out to their parents or whomever — hopefully, if they have issues that come up they can talk to me as an adult, and I can point them in the direction they can go to get the help they need.”

The role of an SRO changes with each grade level, said Hatch. With pre-K and kindergarten students, Hatch said the goal is for students to become familiar and comfortable with law enforcement personnel.

“By going repeatedly, every week, in uniform, they begin to learn at a very early age that I’m a cop, but I’m also just a person,” said Hatch. “Some of the kids don’t have positive encounters with law enforcement, through no fault of their own. It’s just trying to reinforce the positive.”

Work with younger students will also involve short sessions that instruct on basic safety issues, Hatch said, for example staying safe during Halloween and firearm safety.

“Leaving the politics 100 percent out of it — everyone is allowed to have their own political views,” said Hatch. “But for the child whose parents are anti-gun, they may still have access to a firearm at some point in time, be it at a friend’s house, grandparents’ house, or through a friend of a friend.

“We can at least start to reinforce, ‘If you see a firearm, don’t touch it, go tell an adult,’” he said.

At the middle and high school, prominent safety issues involve drug use — especially alcohol and prescription drug abuse — online bullying, and sexting — sending sexually explicit messages and photography via text.

“It starts at middle school, that’s where it really becomes prevalent,” said Hatch. “The point is not to say to them, ‘Do you realize it’s a felony to send a nude photograph from your smartphone’ — it’s not to turn them into criminals.

“It’s an educational approach, to try and make them understand that once they hit send there is no taking that picture back,” said Hatch. “Even though it may have been sent with good intentions, they lose control over what happens next.

“I hope that they will realize that I’m not judging them,” he said. “I’m not telling them, ‘Do this, don’t do that.’ I’m explaining the possible consequences of certain actions.”

The SRO position was created at Wiscasset’s June Town Meeting, increasing the annual police department budget by roughly $40,000 to a total of $376,374.

Placing a police officer in Wiscasset schools was hotly debated by residents. Those arguing against the position said that guidance should be provided to students by social workers and parents, not law enforcement.

Those in favor of having an SRO in the schools, including Police Chief Troy Cline, said that the drug problem at Wiscasset High School was straining the department. At Town Meeting, Cline said he responded to an average of two or three calls at the high school per day.

“Drugs and alcohol are a huge problem in our whole community, in our whole state,” said Hatch. “Our high school is just a reflection of our community.

“We’re not going to search every bag of every kid coming it, that’s not what we want. We’re supposed to be free,” said Hatch, adding that just having an officer present in the schools could be a deterrent to on-campus drug use.

“The vast, vast majority of these kids want to be here, they want to learn,” said Hatch. “They’re kids, they make mistakes — but they’re good kids.”

rgargiulo@timesrecord.com