Officer takes to the hallways of middle schools
By Melissa Muntz Community Reporter

Officer Scott Mentzer reports for duty as the new Sherwood and Oak Middle School Resource Officer. PHOTO/MELISSA MUNTZ

Shrewsbury - In his 12 years on the Shrewsbury Police Department, Officer Scott Mentzer has come in contact with some pretty unsavory characters.

The question is, have they prepared him for his latest assignment - serving as the school resource officer for more than 1,000 middle school students in Shrewsbury?

"I'm not too worried because I'm bigger than them," he said with a smile. "It's been a long time since I've been in a middle school … but they're just little people."

In his first week working as the first ever resource officer at Oak Middle School and Sherwood Middle School, Officer Mentzer has been focusing mainly on just making his presence known.

He makes rounds, makes sure he's in the hallway when classes change and monitors the cafeteria and outdoor recess periods.

"It's a much more finite population that you're dealing with on a regular basis, so it's more about developing interpersonal relations and getting to know who the players are," he said.

Though he notes that society is a lot diff erent since he was a middle school student, Officer Mentzer said he expects the problems that kids are facing to be pretty similar.

"I'll be dealing with standard stuff , kids that are getting into trouble, drug and alcohol activity, interpersonal problems like bullying," he said.

Though he doesn't expect all negative behaviors to come to an end now that there's a regular police presence in the building, Mentzer said he is hoping to be able to get a grasp on individual students before dangerous behaviors get too far out of hand.

"The more consistent interaction makes a huge diff erence," he said. "If you can get to something while it's just smoldering, you can get that fire out and then everyone is back on track before you have to call the police and we're headed to court."

Mentzer said he will be taking some classes on school law and school safety issues, but said past training in individual and group crisis intervention and suicide intervention will be useful even for helping kids at this age.

One of the changes in working with children rather than adults that Mentzer said he is looking most forward to is the opportunity to help kids before they fall between the cracks, as opposed to dealing with adults who have a smaller opportunity to turn their situations around.

"If you can get to a problem when they're young, you can help them see what needs to be changed here, at home or in the community to help make the better choices easier for them to make."

Mentzer will be available to all students who may have something they need to talk about that they don't feel comfortable approaching a teacher or parent with. He's also available as a resource to administrators, teachers and parents who may have concerns about a child that they don't know how to handle.

He has a permanent office at Oak Middle School, and can be reached by calling the school or by email at smentzer@shrewsbury. k12.ma.us.

"My door is always open to anyone who needs help," he said.