Thirkill welcomes back students; new SRO Mumford is back in school as well!

Local schools are in the process of welcoming students back for the year, which is a time of great excitement (and some anxiety) for everyone.  The Soda Springs School district is open for business this week, and while there are some staffing changes that have taken place since last school year, both on the school board and in the local schools, we are highlighting the new School Resource Officer here to start off the year.

Officer Trevyn Phelps, who served as the SRO for the district up until this summer, has taken a position in Bear Lake County.  Luckily, the SRO position was not open for too long before Officer Nick Mumford was named to the position.  Mumford will be observing the same schedule Phelps had, which is to say he will be working in all three district schools throughout the week, with Thirkill generally seeing Officer Mumford during the mornings.

Principal Worthington places a high value on the impact of students, staff, and personnel like Mumford being on site and interacting with the students.  “It’s non-negotiable that I’m there in the morning,” Worthington says.  “Starting every morning at 7:30 we do high fives, the music comes on, we go til 8:00 and the music goes off.  Between that time, we’re celebrating the kids coming to school in the morning, which is awesome.”

“It’s a positive thing for the beginning of the day,” adds Thirkill’s Counselor Brooke Golightly.  “It gets the kids excited to come to school.  “They all get to see Mister Worthington, and make that connection.”

Officer Mumford has not had experience as an SRO before but he can already say, in his second week, “I love it!”  He has a third and fifth grader in the district, and is a strong supporter of the schools.  So much so that when the opening for the position was announced, he sought
it out.  

Officer Mumford noted that “Interacting with the kids, and changing some of the opinions” were two of the things he was looking forward to over the course of the year.  There is a large amount of research into the topic, and it is nearly unanimous in its findings that interactions with officials and adults that make kids feel valued and important lead to better outcomes in measurable categories later in life.  Research has also found strong correlation between a positive police presence in children’s communities and lower participation in crime. 

Principal Worthington explained that he felt the most important role of the SRO was “their presence.  An SRO is a resource.  It is nice to have a presence and a resource for different kinds of things that I just don’t know.  They are also, of course, just great examples to our kids.  The more presence the SRO has, the more likely the students are to just reach out, and then there is room for a healthy relationship between the students and police, and that can be a big help to them.  In a lot of situations where a child needs to reach out for police, those situations can be very serious and very scary.  But if it starts here, it can be positive from the beginning.”

Counselor Brooke Golightly, who is also married to Chief of Police CeJay Golightly, adds that “it’s also important that they aren’t just law enforcement.  The SRO is also a member of the community.  Law enforcement is there for us, for the people and their safety.  And I think when law enforcement is involved with safety at the school, that can help put a lot of people at ease and maybe deter or prevent some of the things that we don’t want in the schools.”

Front office guru Shannon Steele further adds “I think it’s fabulous to have their presence here in the school.  It’s great for our students to see that officers are here to help—they’re not bad guys.  They’re always the good guys.  And it’s nice to have their presence in our school.  And it doesn’t help with the parents for pickup and dropoff, and I think the parents like that we have law enforcement here keeping the school safe.”

The SRO position is jointly funded by the Soda Springs Police Department and the Soda Springs School District.  It’s reassuring that both entities agree that there is a good value in making sure that an additional layer of communication between the school system and local law enforcement is in place.  For many students, the SRO is the first police officer they will come in contact with in their lives, and as such they bear a certain amount of responsibility to make sure those interactions are positive.  Officer Mumford seems well-suited to the task.

Thirkill itself, as well as the broader school district, is already filling the calendar with upcoming events, and we will bring them to you as soon as we can.  The most impending at Thirkill is the PTO Fun Run.  The Fun Run is scheduled for September 15, and the assembly to celebrate the winners will be on October 2.  More detail will be coming in the weeks leading up to the event.