The Newport News Police Department is pleased to announce that officers have “adopted” all of the city’s elementary schools.
The Adopt-A-School program assigns at least one officer to each elementary school. The officers, and some non-sworn employees, will regularly visit the schools to help mentor students.
The elementary school mentors will schedule around their other police department duties to stop by and greet students as they arrive to school, read inside classrooms, or join students for lunch, recess or special activities.
These mentors are not School Resource Officers. (SROs are assigned full-time to the city’s middle and high schools and provide a wide-range of other support services.)
The program is in line with Chief of Police Steve Drew’s goal to increase officers’ interactions with elementary school children. “It’s extremely important our officers have positive interactions with the younger members of our community,” Chief Drew said. “We want to build relationships with our citizens while they’re young to earn their trust and to inspire them to reach their fullest potential.”