Officer uses skills gained on Drug Task Force to guide elementary youth
By Michele Linck Journal staff writer | Posted: Saturday, December 29, 2007
SOUTH SIOUX CITY -- South Sioux City police officer Shawn Jensen slaps hands with young students at Lewis and Clark Elementary School as they finish lunch and head to the playground.
"Low fives," he calls the routine, clearly relished by most of the kids. "Of course," he adds, "for them it's a high five."
It's just one interaction Jensen, 40, and the father of two preschoolers, cultivates in his role as the school resource officer for the six elementary schools in the South Sioux City Community Schools system. It's an assignment he requested.
Just months ago he was finishing a nearly six-year stint on the Tri-State Drug Task Force where he worked with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency as the day-to-day leader in the investigation of the international Ryan Mathison drug ring.
Eventually they slapped not hands but handcuffs and subpoenas on dozens of suspects and witnesses in the largest drug case ever tried in Sioux City.
Both are important
"I really learned a lot about interpersonal skills on the task force," Jensen said, noting he worked with a multitude of state, federal and international law enforcement agencies, officers, suspects, witnesses, attorneys and prosecutors. "It's key to have those skills working with children, staff and parents."
And he said the investigative skills he honed on the task force are useful in investigating child abuse, neglect and truancy, an unhappy duty for school resource officers.
"A lot of people say, how can you come to something like this after the Tri-State Drug Task Force?" Jensen said. While he admits the "excitement level" is lower, he sees both roles as important. And related.
"It's like I'm getting a chance to go back in time," he said. "When these kids get a chance to choose to go down the right path or the wrong path, hopefully they'll remember me, what I talked to them about. Hopefully they'll choose the right path.
"Working with kids is easy," he said. For starters, unlike drug dealers, they respect him. Part of the school resource officer's job is to help change the public's attitude about police officers. Jensen said he's seeing that happen already.
"I see these kids at Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart or out on the street. "They say, 'Hey, Mom, look! It's the police officer from school!'" Sometimes they'll even bring their mother over to meet him.
Jensen said his first duty is to make sure all 1,800 students in the elementary schools are safe and feel safe, so they can learn. But there's much more to do.
Always mentoring
He typically spends his daily shift at one of the schools, establishing a rapport with the kindergarten through fifth-graders and teaching -- always teaching them. Sometimes it's a casual chat in the lunchroom, where he folds his 6-foot 3-inch frame into a low squat so he can hear the children and talk to them literally at their own level.
Or, it can be a classroom discussion on the negative aspects of joining a gang -- "There are no positive aspects" -- or on Internet safety, Stranger Danger or Halloween safety. Or, it may be a private, encouraging talk about choices and changes with a student who has been disruptive.
This school year is only the second in which South Sioux City has had a resource officer in the elementary schools. Three officers and one deputy have shared resource duties in the middle and high schools for several years.
The local program, called Cardinal Connections, is part of the Safe Schools Healthy Students grant program. Like the Tri-State Drug Task Force, it's federally funded. Jensen's assignment to it will run for three or four years more if the funding continues.
Having seen how kids can grow up to be adults who make bad decisions, Jensen thinks it, like the Tri-State Drug Task Force, is a good investment.
A role model
Sheri Fillipi, principal of Lewis and Clark Elementary, said she sees great value in having a resource officer, too. "The kids love having him here," she said. "Because he's building relationships, (their interaction) doesn't have to be about a problem."
Fillipi said the 225-student school has no male teachers; even its janitor is a woman. Jensen is the primary male influence in the lives of some of the students. "He's more than someone they just see here a day a week," she said. "He's their role model."
Jensen is already feeling like more than a role model. Just four months into the assignment, he is beginning to feel a kind of familial attachment to the kids. He recalled that he was working at Harney Elementary School on his recent birthday. A lot of kids gave him birthday cards they'd made for him, and just about every student made a point to wish him a happy birthday.
"You really get to feel after a while that all 1,800 kids are your own," he said. "If something happened to 'em, you'd be devastated."
Unless, of course, that "something" is a good thing coming out of a good decision he helped shape.
"Low fives," he calls the routine, clearly relished by most of the kids. "Of course," he adds, "for them it's a high five."
It's just one interaction Jensen, 40, and the father of two preschoolers, cultivates in his role as the school resource officer for the six elementary schools in the South Sioux City Community Schools system. It's an assignment he requested.
Just months ago he was finishing a nearly six-year stint on the Tri-State Drug Task Force where he worked with the federal Drug Enforcement Agency as the day-to-day leader in the investigation of the international Ryan Mathison drug ring.
Eventually they slapped not hands but handcuffs and subpoenas on dozens of suspects and witnesses in the largest drug case ever tried in Sioux City.
Both are important
"I really learned a lot about interpersonal skills on the task force," Jensen said, noting he worked with a multitude of state, federal and international law enforcement agencies, officers, suspects, witnesses, attorneys and prosecutors. "It's key to have those skills working with children, staff and parents."
And he said the investigative skills he honed on the task force are useful in investigating child abuse, neglect and truancy, an unhappy duty for school resource officers.
"A lot of people say, how can you come to something like this after the Tri-State Drug Task Force?" Jensen said. While he admits the "excitement level" is lower, he sees both roles as important. And related.
"It's like I'm getting a chance to go back in time," he said. "When these kids get a chance to choose to go down the right path or the wrong path, hopefully they'll remember me, what I talked to them about. Hopefully they'll choose the right path.
"Working with kids is easy," he said. For starters, unlike drug dealers, they respect him. Part of the school resource officer's job is to help change the public's attitude about police officers. Jensen said he's seeing that happen already.
"I see these kids at Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart or out on the street. "They say, 'Hey, Mom, look! It's the police officer from school!'" Sometimes they'll even bring their mother over to meet him.
Jensen said his first duty is to make sure all 1,800 students in the elementary schools are safe and feel safe, so they can learn. But there's much more to do.
Always mentoring
He typically spends his daily shift at one of the schools, establishing a rapport with the kindergarten through fifth-graders and teaching -- always teaching them. Sometimes it's a casual chat in the lunchroom, where he folds his 6-foot 3-inch frame into a low squat so he can hear the children and talk to them literally at their own level.
Or, it can be a classroom discussion on the negative aspects of joining a gang -- "There are no positive aspects" -- or on Internet safety, Stranger Danger or Halloween safety. Or, it may be a private, encouraging talk about choices and changes with a student who has been disruptive.
This school year is only the second in which South Sioux City has had a resource officer in the elementary schools. Three officers and one deputy have shared resource duties in the middle and high schools for several years.
The local program, called Cardinal Connections, is part of the Safe Schools Healthy Students grant program. Like the Tri-State Drug Task Force, it's federally funded. Jensen's assignment to it will run for three or four years more if the funding continues.
Having seen how kids can grow up to be adults who make bad decisions, Jensen thinks it, like the Tri-State Drug Task Force, is a good investment.
A role model
Sheri Fillipi, principal of Lewis and Clark Elementary, said she sees great value in having a resource officer, too. "The kids love having him here," she said. "Because he's building relationships, (their interaction) doesn't have to be about a problem."
Fillipi said the 225-student school has no male teachers; even its janitor is a woman. Jensen is the primary male influence in the lives of some of the students. "He's more than someone they just see here a day a week," she said. "He's their role model."
Jensen is already feeling like more than a role model. Just four months into the assignment, he is beginning to feel a kind of familial attachment to the kids. He recalled that he was working at Harney Elementary School on his recent birthday. A lot of kids gave him birthday cards they'd made for him, and just about every student made a point to wish him a happy birthday.
"You really get to feel after a while that all 1,800 kids are your own," he said. "If something happened to 'em, you'd be devastated."
Unless, of course, that "something" is a good thing coming out of a good decision he helped shape.
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concerned wrote on Dec 31, 2007 2:31 PM:
in sioux city wrote on Dec 29, 2007 1:39 PM:
minnow wrote on Dec 29, 2007 11:42 AM:
Cardinal Parent wrote on Dec 29, 2007 11:32 AM: