Image Credit: townofgreeneville/Instagram & EastView Elementary School / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative Staff –
A Greeneville police officer has been honored as the Tennessee School Resource Officer (SRO) of the Year by the Tennessee School Resource Officers Association.
Chris Metcalf is a patrolman for the Greeneville Police Department and serves as the SRO at Eastview Elementary. While this past year was his first at Eastview, he has been serving as an SRO intermittently for the last decade.
Darci Dolen, a Special Education teacher at Eastview, nominated Metcalf for the honor after seeing the nominations page. She felt he deserved recognition for his efforts to connect with and support the students.
“When he came in, he immediately wanted to know each of my students,” said Dolen. “As the year progressed, he started to realize each of my kids have their own interests and so he would kind of bring that into conversation.”
Metcalf shared that his favorite part of being an SRO is talking with the students.
“That gives us an opportunity to have conversations, finding out what the kids are up to, and what’s going on in their lives,” said Metcalf. “If they need somebody to talk to, being there for them.”
“I’ve never seen him without a smile,” said Darci Dolen, a Special Education teacher at Eastview. “We’re very grateful to have him.”
Metcalf has also enhanced safety measures and emergency protocols, ensuring that everyone in the building is prepared for emergencies.
“He’s made some changes where we didn’t foresee those areas of need,” said Dolen. “He’s made it to where we can ask questions or we can bring concerns and we can talk about these things and come up with a good plan.”
“I was shocked, it was very surprising,” said Metcalf. “It’s nice when somebody notices what you’re doing and nominate you for something like that.”
