Protecting our hallways for as long any student in this school can remember, School Resource Officer Jamie Douglass now prepares to exit Manhattan High School at the end of the school year, leaving behind both the school and the kids that he has watched over for four long years.

After he applied for the job a few years back, Douglas was sent to the ninth grade center for a year ultimately being promoted to West Campus where he would work with MHS students for the next three years.

“I really like working with kids,” Douglass said. “One of the aspects of police work that I really like is the community-based policing. I like to help work special events around the community. I do car seat installations, special events, school stuff. That’s what I enjoy, the relationships and the community-based policing. Some guys like the go-go-go swat team aspect of policing and arresting people of the time. I like being interactive with the community. So yeah, I like working with kids and I think it’s really beneficial,” Douglass said.

Throughout his career as MHS resource officer, he has had to encounter more than a few arrests and situations regarding students with drugs or alcohol, along with a large variety of students that spread across several classes of students.

“In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve interacted with seven, technically, classes of kids, and you see trends among different classes,” Douglass said.

Not only has he had to deal with those struggles, but individual struggles unique to some classes and groups of high schoolers.  

“Sometimes you’ll have a bunch of good kids come through and then another one with a few more troublemakers in it, but the types of stuff they’re involved in kind of varies too,” Douglass said. “Unfortunately we’ve had a a couple of classes that didn’t make the right decisions as far as drugs and alcohol and we’ve had other classes that their issues are drama and social media based things like that. So sometimes from class to class the types of things we deal with are different and you’ll see there’s different patterns in classes as they go through.”

Even through all of the adversity, Douglass will miss MHS, the environment in which he has built relationships with anyone he could.   

“I think one of the most important things I’ll take away from being here is building relationships with kids, faculty and staff that I’ll take away long after I’m gone from here,” Douglass said. “You know seeing kids out in the community and having contacts with staff. The most important things are the relationships that have been built and things that I have learned about students and school that I would have never thought about if I didn’t have this job.”