FORT KENT, Maine — Aroostook County commissioners voted Wednesday to use $209,128 in opioid settlement funds to hire a school resource officer who will rotate among central Aroostook County schools.
The officer would work with the Central Aroostook Council on Education, a nonprofit focused on student growth and improved education quality, and would start in the fall.
The program will create a brand-new position, Interim County Administrator Dana Gendreau said. There are few resource officers in central Aroostook. Fort Fairfield’s schools have one, but RSU 39, which serves Caribou and Stockholm, eliminated the position four years ago to bring on more mental health support.
Commissioner William Dobbins worked to put the program together with help from Aroostook County Sheriff Peter Johnson.
“When you get an officer out there and he’s going into the school, the kids recognize that officer and there’s good communication,” Dobbins said.
The program, called the Prevention and Student Support Initiative, is designed to promote safe and healthy learning environments in Central Aroostook Council on Education, which includes schools in Easton, Limestone, Caswell Public Schools, Ashland, Mars Hill and Washburn.
The resource officer would work directly with students, staff and families.
The officer will move between central Aroostook schools but will be based at the Caswell School Department, which includes Dawn F. Barnes Elementary School.
The program has been vetted and statistics confirm its effectiveness, Johnson said.
The opioid settlement money would completely fund the officer as a pilot program, with no taxpayer dollars used, Dobbins said. He will reach out to superintendents about potentially continuing to fund the program in the future.
Gendreau did not vote for or against it, but said that it is financially viable since the funding is not coming from state or local taxes. The actual costs may well come in under the $209,128 allotted, she said.
Commissioner Daniel Deveau supported the program and the idea of prevention. When he was in the sixth grade, someone came to his school with a voice box that was installed as a result of smoking cigarettes.
“I can say today that I don’t smoke because of that,” Deveau said. “He came and gave a presentation and it affected us.”
Dobbins abstained from the vote due to his active role in submitting and presenting the initiative.
The remaining two commissioners, Deveau and Paul Underwood, voted in favor of the program.
