For the four School Resource Officers (SRO) serving Allen County Schools, keeping students safe is only part of the job.
Officer Bobby Jackson at the Allen County Primary Center (ACPC), Officer Darren Tabor at the Allen County Intermediate Center (ACIC), Officer Chris Johns at the James E. Bazzell Middle School (JEBMS) and Deputy Sheriff Nick Tabbert at Allen County-Scottsville High School (AC-SH) bring decades of law-enforcement experience into the schools each day.
Along with providing security, the officers work to build relationships with students and become trusted, familiar faces throughout the district.
Jackson, who is entering his 27th year in law enforcement, estimates he has spent about nine years as a School Resource Officer. He has served at three schools during that time but said working with the district's youngest students has been especially rewarding.
“Just getting to spend time with these little guys out here at the school, I love it,” Jackson said. “Everybody's been good to me, but I love it here at the Primary Center, being around the little kids.”
For Jackson, one of the most important parts of the job is giving students another adult they can trust.
“Just being able to be a trusted adult for them and somebody for them to talk to and look up to, I just enjoy it and I love it,” he added.
Tabor came to the Intermediate Center after nearly 20 years in law enforcement and experience in a variety of police roles. He requested the school assignment and said he quickly discovered how much he enjoyed working with students.
“I've done about every role in the police department there is, and I like this,” Tabor noted with a smile. “I like the speed of it. I like interacting with the kids. It's pretty fun.”
Though relatively new to the SRO role, Tabor said the position has already proven rewarding.
“Honestly, I wish I'd done it sooner because it's a different speed for sure,” he said.
At JEBMS, Johns is in his 23rd year in law enforcement. He began serving as an SRO during the 2019-20 school year, before the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the school year in March 2020.
Johns said the interaction with students and staff is among the most rewarding aspects of his work. Those relationships often carry over into extracurricular activities, where he and the other officers regularly work school events. Students sometimes ask Johns whether he plans to attend their games.
“You go over there and you see their face light up when you show up,” Johns pointed out.
Tabbert brings 17 years of law-enforcement experience to AC-SH. He has served approximately four to five years as an SRO, with previous assignments at the Primary Center and Intermediate Center before moving to the high school.
For Tabbert, the central responsibility remains simple: protecting students.
His experience at multiple schools also reflects the broader role SROs play in the district. Students may first meet an officer as a young child and continue seeing familiar law-enforcement faces as they progress through school.
Together, Jackson, Tabor, Johns and Tabbert bring nearly nine decades of law-enforcement experience to Allen County Schools. Their presence provides an important layer of security, but their influence extends beyond responding to emergencies.
It can be seen in a young student stopping to talk with an officer in the hallway, a conversation at the Intermediate Center or a middle school athlete looking into the stands and realizing the officer he knows from school came to watch him play.
Those everyday interactions are an important part of the SRO program — protecting students while building relationships with the children and school communities they serve.
An SRO in each school is made possible through the support of the Scottsville Police Department, the Allen County Sheriff’s Department, and city and county government.