Nolan's New Job!

Ok, it’s not really new anymore but during my blogging absence Nolan got the School Resource Officer position at Box Elder High School. We’d known for a few months that the position was going to open up and we’d talked about it and decided that we wanted to apply. They finally announced that they would be accepting application letters a few days before I ended up in the hospital. Spending a week in the hospital and having a NICU baby pushed writing an application letter to the back burner. After my week in the hospital Nolan finally found time to write up his letter and after having me read over it he sent it in right before the deadline.

The next step was to interview with the higher-ups in the department and the school board as well. Nolan has always had a great rapport with the high school kids so he already had a decent reputation with a few of the school board members. He knocked the interview out of the park and they ended up offering him the job.

The training for this position is a two-week course that is usually out of state but Nolan didn’t get offered the job until two weeks before school was scheduled to start. Since there wasn’t time to send him to his training he was sent to a two-day course that really didn’t help him at all and then sent off to his new job. As the School Resource Officer (SRO) he also has to teach a Law Enforcement class. If it weren’t for the fact that Nolan has had experience with serious public speaking (thank you High School debate!) and a few training courses since he started working for the department he’d have been in way over his head. As it was he spent the first month frantically trying to figure out how to organize his lesson plans, learn the layout of the new school, round up his own teaching materials, figure out school policy regarding students, and learn the ins and outs of the laws dealing with juveniles.

Even though there have been some really rough days Nolan has LOVED this position! Nolan has always worked very well with the teenagers in Brigham and when he was going to school up at USU he was working towards becoming a high school teacher so this is a position that combines the two things that he’s wanted to do career wise. He’s really been enjoying teaching the class and he’s learning and adjusting every trimester so that he can help the kids understand and retain more.

It’s been a little crazy hearing some of the things that he has to deal with. It makes me feel old to say this but it’s crazy how many problems cell-phones have brought into the schools. We didn’t have cell phones when I was in high school!! Now Nolan has to deal with kids sending dirty pictures and messages to each other and they don’t realize that since they are under 18 that what they are doing is distributing child pornography! To make it worse, when 18-year-old boyfriend sends or receives pictures with 17-year-old girlfriend he can end up being listed as a sex offender for the rest of his life! It’s not just the high school that has these problems either. Nolan also spends time in the 8-9 grade center and sees the exact same problems. CRAZY stuff!

It’s definitely not all bad experiences though. Nolan’s gotten to work with a lot of kids and help them get back on the right track towards graduation and college. He’s gotten to work the home games for both football and basketball. Both teams made it to the playoffs. We took Rodney to the last football game and also to one of the playoff basketball games and he did great! It was REALLY weird to be cheering for Box Elder but it’s really cool to see the students get excited to see Nolan there and to see how invested he is in them after only a few months.

Baby Rodney and I at the football game

Once school is out Nolan will spend the summer working and learning in the detective’s office and going to different training courses so that when the next school year rolls around he’ll actually know what he’s supposed to be doing!