
Photo by Jon Anderson
Brett Pace is a school resource officer at Bluff Park Elementary School in Hoover, Alabama.
Brett Pace serves as the school resource officer at Bluff Park Elementary School in Hoover.
Q: How long have you been in law enforcement, and how long have you been an SRO?
A: I've been a police officer since I started the police academy in January 2012 in Montgomery, so that's almost 13 years. This is my fourth school year as an SRO [all at Bluff Park]. I filled in before then at various schools.
Q: What made you decide you wanted to be an SRO?
A: I've always loved kids. I grew up helping out at church with youth ministry and stuff like that. I wasn’t a youth minister or nothing, but I went on trips with them and always loved being around kids and working with kids. It’s just a great way to get involved in the community, and it’s just really rewarding. A lot of policing jobs – you don’t get to see the results, whereas at the school, you can kind of see yourself making a difference in somebody’s life.
Q: You recently were certified as a National Association of School Resource Officers Practitioner. What does that mean?
A: To become a practitioner, you have to have a 40-hour basic training course, and there’s an advanced training course that’s 24 hours. You’ve got to be a school resource officer for at least three years. You have to also have 160 hours of police training, also 64 hours of specialized training that applies to something in the school safety realm. You have to also attend a school conference from NASRO. The one I went to was in Orlando.
Q: What’s the best part about being an SRO to you?
A: I really love and enjoy being around the kids. I feel like I get just as much out of it as they do. I was not the best kid in school. I didn’t like reading. I didn’t like a lot of stuff, and now I do a book club at school. Sometimes I go in the classroom and do math problems with them, stuff like that. I feel like it’s full circle. I get to make a difference in a kid’s life that may not have a father or may not have somebody to look up to. It’s the best job in the world. It’s really special. Kids get to see somebody else in a different light. I can cut up and be goofy with them. I eat lunch with them. We go outside. We used to play football a lot. I go to recess with them. I go to P.E. [physical education] sometimes. I’ll stop in there and shoot basketball or play other games and stuff like that. It’s really one of the best jobs in the world. You have a lot of fun, and you feel like you made a difference in somebody’s life.
Q: Have you ever had any serious threats or situations you’ve had to deal with?
A: We have stuff time to time, but nothing on a national level, like none of the school shootings you see on TV. We haven’t had anything like that. We’ve had minor incidents sometimes — somebody that’s not supposed to be on campus trying to cut through or walk through the campus, or maybe a disgruntled parent. But we don’t really have a lot of issues at Bluff Park — at least since I’ve been there.
Q: Do the kids ever ask you any funny questions or say funny things?
A: I give some of them nicknames and stuff like that. They kind of give me nicknames, some of them. They love giving fist bumps in the hallway. That’s a big thing that we do. Football’s a big deal. They love playing football with me. The book club — the boys really like it. I do a book club for fourth and fifth grade boys. I sit with them, and they all take turns reading a book. They just read a page, and we do a chapter one day a week. We take 30 minutes, and each kid gets to read. It’s really cool for them because it’s not another teacher. It’s somebody that they kind of look up to that makes reading fun. I feel like it makes a big difference to them. … The book we’re reading now is “Brian’s Winter.” It’s kind of like a survival book, so they get to see this kid that’s a little bit older than them survive in the wilderness, and then they ask questions about hunting and stuff. I’m a big deer hunter, so I explain to them some of the survival stuff that’s he’s doing at the time. It’s just really cool. It’s just kind of like male bonding I guess with the boys.