One Year In, School Resource Officer Making a Difference

Ryan Prail isn’t your average police officer.

An Inver Grove Heights Police Department employee, he spends more time speaking with students in the hallways and classrooms of local schools than he does issuing tickets, apprehending criminals or investigating crimes.

And Prail wouldn’t have it any other way.

In 2010, the veteran police officer and former SWAT team member took on a new assignment as the school resource officer for the Inver Grove Heights school district.

One year into Prail’s tenure, School District 199 and Inver Grove Heights Police Department officials say he’s become more than just another police badge patrolling the schools. Instead, he’s helped the district and the police deal more effectively with juvenile incidents and become a counselor and role model for students across the district.

"He’s a face that’s there every day; he's recognizable and more approachable because he is there and has that comfort level [with students]," Interim Inver Grove Heights Police Chief Larry Stanger said.

Although Prail makes regular visits to all the schools in the district during the school year, he spends the majority of his time at Simley High School and the Inver Grove Heights Middle School. There, he is primarily responsible for school safety and deals with tobacco violations, disorderly conduct cases, cell phone and iPod thefts and any discipline issues that rise to the level of criminal behavior, according to Simley High School Principal Jerry Sakala.

Using his network of contacts among high school students, he also assists the police department in investigations and runaway cases outside school grounds, Stanger said.

But enforcement is only one facet of Prail's job. He visits with local students, helps teach Driver's Education and civics classes and will even help coach Simley High School football this fall.

It’s all part of an effort to build lasting relationships between youth and law enforcement officers in Inver Grove Heights, Prail said.

"I don’t just want to be a cop that hands out tickets," Prail said. "I think if the kids see how I’m in the school…maybe that interaction at the school will relate outside [of school], and maybe some of the choices students might have done a few years ago won’t happen this year."

The school district first began talking about the need for a school resource officer in 2008, Sakala said. At the time, the district was one of the few in the Twin Cities area without an attached police officer.

Because of a lack of comparative student discipline statistics, district officials have no way of knowing whether Prail’s presence has led to a decrease in infractions or behavior problems, Sakala said. Anecdotally, the number of tobacco violations in the district has dropped in the last year, according to Simley High School Dean of Students Ben Lane, who attributed the decrease to Prail.

Lane also said that several students have told him they feel safer at school because of Prail.

"Ryan is so good at developing relationships with kids that a lot of times, the kids would search him out to talk to him," Sakala said. Establishing those relationships with students, Sakala added, means that students are also more willing to talk to Prail when something goes wrong.

This fall, Prail will begin his second school year as the district's school resource officer. School district and police department officials met earlier this summer to discuss the the position. Because the program was so successful in its first year, Stanger and Sakala said, they don’t plan to implement any significant changes to it.

"The only time some of these kids have seen a cop is when mom got arrested, dad got arrested or they got arrested," Prail said. "I want them to look at me a little differently."

WHO PAYS FOR THE SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICER?

Under an agreement between the city and School District 199, the school district pays for three quarters of Prail’s salary and benefits, while the police department pays the remainder, Interim Inver Grove Heights Police Chief Larry Stanger said. Prail’s annual salary and benefits total roughly $99,000.