by Krystal Paco

Guam - It's been a year since the island's high schools welcomed a new face to campus, and the School Resource Officer Program will be growing thanks to positive feedback from schools and additional federal funding. In light of the Sandy Hook massacre, additional law enforcement officers on school grounds is welcomed news.

According to Judiciary of Guam's Safe and Drug -Free Schools Project manager Joleen Respicio, the SRO Program is growing from five to nine. Come mid-February two SRO will be assigned to each of the island's high schools with the exception of Okkodo. "It's comforting that President Obama has signed the 23 executive actions and included in that, an initiative to be able to hire more school resource officers," she said.

According to the October 2012-December 2012 Quarterly Report for all public high schools, SROs conducted 10 searches, addressed 11 contraband possessions, and 16 fight instigations. But it's not just about policing school grounds. Respicio says SROs reach out to students in an effort to keep them out of the court system. For the three-month period, SROs conducted over 300 outreaches ranging from informal counseling, providing informal knowledge on the law and assisting GPD. Respicio says this is critical as there are presently 700 juvenile clients.

Since the program's introduction however it's been debated whether or not the SRO should have a gun as part of their uniform. "As members the Judiciary and DOE through the SRO program we are members of the National Association of School Resource Officers and with over 3,000 members in the organization its always been the position that its important to fully equip law enforcement officers," said Respicio. "And so we're very much in support of that, however, as a policy the chief justice of our Judiciary has stated that he would like for the Guam Education Board and the Guam Legislature to make that decision so we leave that up to them."

Chairperson of the Legislative Committee on Education Speaker Judi Won Pat says a roundtable with the Department of Education, the Guam Education Board, the Judiciary, and GPD is set for next week to continue addressing school safety and the possibility of arming SROs. "I know its going to be a split with the parents with I'm sure and what we want to do is we want to of course take their input seriously but we want to get the experts and that's law enforcement and the courts themselves their probation officers are armed but we want to be able to look at different scenarios," the speaker said.

The roundtable is set for 9am Tuesday at Won Pat's office.