Editor’s note: Part one of a series on each Student Resource Officer in Adair County.
For the last five years, Adam Cravens has served as the resident Student Resource Officer at Adair County High School. But he never thought he would be an SRO.
“I had been a road unit my whole career,” Officer Cravens said of his time in the police department—he had also been a park ranger and a deputy.
“Junior Murphy was chief at the time. He actually came to my house and asked if I ever thought about being an SRO… And no, I’d never thought about being an SRO. It made too much sense not to (be one). But my wife is a district employee. At the time, my son was in the primary center. I have a vested interest in school safety.”
It can be easy to understand why Officer Cravens may have been hesitant to take on the position of Student Resource Officer—especially for the high school. Adair County High School comprises roughly 20 to 25 percent of all of Columbia’s caseload for city police.
Overseeing the high school is an immense task – and was only part of the job for Kevin Atwood, who served as the SRO before Cravens. For the bulk of his career, Atwood was the sole SRO in Adair County. Only in the last few years of his career was there an SRO at each school building.
Even with additional SROs, the sheer volume of work to be done for an officer at the high school alone can be a lot for one person to handle.
Cravens’s extensive law enforcement background, though, has prepared him for working in the school system. In many ways, he sees the school as a microcosm of the surrounding area.
“I look at being a Student Resource Officer as community-based policing… Any problem the kid is having, the community is going to have the same problem. These kids are going to bring to school what they have at home. If they have a problem at home, it’s going to be brought to the school. If they have an addiction at home, it’s going to be brought to the school,” Cravens said. “I look at that building as a small town… It’s just in a concentrated area with younger people. I tell a lot of guys, and they laugh – the running joke is we are ‘crayon cops’ – but the last couple of weeks, there have been road units for extra presence and they see what’s going on. I do what (they) do except I don’t do lights and sirens. I just go classroom to classroom.”
Where there is a key difference between regular road units and a Student Resource Officer is that an SRO has to tailor their approach for a younger demographic. Not only does he have to change his tone when dealing with children (Cravens describes himself as a “fairly sarcastic person”), but he has to figure out which hat to wear in which interaction.
Ultimately, what a 15-year-old needs is different than what a 30-year-old in the same situation may need. An SRO is not only a police officer, but also has to be a role model and a friend for some children who otherwise may not have one.
Officer Cravens described this need to change roles as, “If you’ve lived a fairly clean-cut life, it’s hard to fathom what some of these kids have gone through and seen and done.”
Cravens realizes that his contact with students could change their outlook on law enforcement and their attitude about being law-abiding citizens.
“Obviously (SROs) are there for safety (but) I might have to be someone’s big brother, someone’s shoulder to cry on, or the consequence… Sometimes you have to be everything I just said at the same time… Some of these kids have never had a good interaction with police in their homelife,” he said. “If I can show them that I can be trusted, if I can prove that to them, if I can make them feel safe, that is my job.”
It’s a job that Cravens describes as fulfilling. Being at the schools for five years, this is the second year where he has been able to watch students grow all the way from freshmen to seniors.
“There’s a lot of kids by the time they walk the line, I’m so proud of (them),” Cravens said.
By Kenley Godby
kenley@adairvoice.com
