Editor’s Note: The following article is by Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell
On July 7th, 2019, Habersham County Sheriff Joey Terrell and the Habersham County Sheriff’s Office School Resource Officer Program welcomed 153 School Resource Officers, representing 52 different agencies from across the State of Georgia, to Brasstown Valley Resort in Towns County, Georgia for the 2019 Georgia Association of School Resource Officers (GASRO) annual conference. During the 3-day conference, attendees had the opportunity to hear from Chris Hollyfield (actor, professional wrestler and motivational speaker) about the realities of bullying and methods to help students take a stand against it and to experience the realities of an active shooter school incident through the personal experience and testimony of Chief David Perry of the Florida State University Police Department. Additionally, attendees were able to attend a series of breakout training sessions that addressed topics such as School Law, Criminal Investigations in the School Setting, Drug Interdiction in the Hallways, Recognizing the Impaired Student, What an SRO needs to know about Social Media, Building the SRO/Administrator Relationship, the Latest Safe School Tech Tools, Stress and the SRO, Emergency Operations Planning and Tactical Considerations for School Bus Incidents.
According to Sheriff Terrell, “I have always considered school safety to be the top priority of my administration as Sheriff of Habersham County. It was truly an honor to serve as the host Sheriff and I cannot express how proud I am of my staff for their tremendous accomplishment in planning and hosting this year’s conference.”
It was also clear that attendees were very pleased with the conference. Comments from conference evaluations included: “Great Job!!!”, “Conference was Great!!!”, “Keep up the good work. You guys did great.”, “Overall this was excellent, great conference”. “Learned a lot and had fun.”, “I enjoyed the conference and I look forward to seeing GASRO grow.”, “This was a good conference and good information”, Well presented and I enjoyed it very much”, and “There is a lot of information from the breakout sessions that I will be able to use at my high school.”
“I have been asked to serve as host sheriff for the 2020 GASRO conference. It is my honor, once again, to accept and serve in this capacity. While we are in the early planning stages, we are looking to partner with Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security, the Georgia Public Safety Training Center, and the Georgia Regional Educational Service Agencies to develop a collaborative partnership that includes both the law enforcement and educator disciplines at the conference. I look forward to sharing more details regarding the 2020 conference as we progress through the planning process.” – Sheriff Joey Terrell.
