A year and a half ago, student community relations officers (SACROs) were added to Brentwood Union Free School District’s school safety team. These non-traditional school safety employees were added when Byron McCray, the district’s director of school safety and chief emergency management officer and a 2024 Campus Safety Director of the Year finalist, noticed limited interactions between students and the district’s traditional school safety officers.

“Our school safety team, they’re responsible for seeing students when they arrive, when they leave, and during the course of the day when they’re patrolling the district. However, I found that a lot of our school safety team wasn’t trained to deal with a crisis if a student was going through a crisis,” said McCray. “So I had to create a team that was able to deal with different types of issues that our students are facing.”

Their job roles are changing daily, requiring constant adaptation for each unique situation.

During this interview, McCray shares:

• A general overview of what SACROs do (3:42)
• Different student-oriented programs led by SACROs (6:15)
• How SACROs partner with local faith-based organizations to provide additional support to students (9:09)
• How SACROs work with other area businesses to mitigate the school-to-prison pipeline (9:38)
• How he trains all school safety officers to approach student discipline and several accompanying anecdotes (12:36)

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CAMPUS SAFETY SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:

• Facebook: https://facebook.com/CampusSafetyMagazine
• X: https://x.com/CampusSafetyMag
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/CampusSafetyMag
• LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/1836305
• YouTube: @Campussafetymagazine