The FWPD School Resource Officer (SRO) Program is supervised by Sergeant Kerry Haywood.
Sergeant Haywood has been with the Fort Wayne Police Department since 1994. The Fort Wayne Police Departments School Resource Officer Program is a partnership with Fort Wayne Community Schools in which officers are assigned to work in area middle schools during the school year to interact with our community’s youth. Each of these officers does an outstanding job and provides much more than security for the schools. The SROs develop relationships by mentoring and building bridges between the students and the Fort Wayne Police Department. The SROs attend after school activities including parent/teacher conferences. They also teach Project ALERT curriculum in conjunction with the Drug and Alcohol Consortium of Allen County (DAC) to their seventh grade students alerting them to the dangers of alcohol and drugs and discussing alternatives to these substances. Additionally, the SROs also assist with Remedy Live, a suicide prevention program, where their experience and training as Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) officers is very useful. Teaching students on Heather’s Law and Erin’s Law regarding child abuse and child sexual abuse prevention is an important element in this programming.
On a daily basis the SROs assist the school administration, teachers and parents with conflict mediations, making classroom visits and by addressing attendance and discipline issues. The SROs are also responsible for all the elementary schools that feed into their middle schools and occasionally speak at the high schools affiliated with their middle schools. When school is not in session the officers participate in community activities such as the Junior Police Camp and help patrol the areas around their schools. They monitor dispatched runs that involves a juvenile and respond to investigate or assist.
MIDDLE SCHOOL ASSIGNMENTS:
There are (6) SROs who are assigned at various middle schools:
Jefferson Middle- Officer Chris McAfee
Kekionga Middle- Officer Alisha Smith
Lakeside Middle- Officer James Payne
Northwood Middle- Officer Ben Young
Portage Middle- Officer Amber Woodson