At Pemetic, Stories of Support Meet Calls for Data as School Resource Officer Question Lingers, Decision Won’t Happen Until 2026

Carrie Jones

Nov 16, 2025

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Geddy’s.

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SOUTHWEST HARBOR—A decision on whether or not to have a school resource officer in the Pemetic Elementary School will likely not happen until January 2026, more than halfway through the school year.

Southwest Harbor’s school committee on Thursday again heard public comment from members of staff, the select board chair, and others reiterating that they’d like to have an officer in the schools, specifically Officer Kristen Roulet, who Southwest Harbor Police Chief John Hall had pegged for the job.

There was no disagreement among the committee members that Officer Roulet, who has been a teacher in Texas and is fully trained in law enforcement, would be an excellent choice.

It’s the position itself that some school committee members are worried about.

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CHIEF HALL COMMENTS

“The key piece from the police department’s side is working with the community and the community policing philosophy,” Chief Hall said. “It’s building a relationship between the police department and the entire community.”

It’s also about identifying potential problems before it becomes a law enforcement issue, Chief Hall said.

Community policing might be an officer who walks the beat and meets with business owners and hears their concerns and finds solutions. Or, he said, it’s like a DARE officer who comes into the schools and opens doors to staff members in that school.

He was a DARE officer for eight years in Winthrop, Maine back in the 1990s. The problem law enforcement had then with the school was sharing information because there were limited channels to do so. Information had to always be relayed through the superintendent or principal.

When there is an SRO, he said, that can change.

As an example, he told committee members to imagine a student named Johnny and that Johnny’s parents were involved in a domestic assault the night before school. Nobody at school knows that happened in front of Johnny at his home. In a restrictive communication system, which a SRO helps prevent, Johnny may have already had a meltdown in school and staff might not know until well after the event or ever what had triggered it, Chief Hall said.

“We don’t talk about that out in the street because people think we’re getting information from kids to bust their parents or something like that. That is incorrect,” Chief Hall said.

They imagine, he said that the SRO will tell everyone that Daddy keeps his “oregano” in the bathroom closet.

“That’s not why we’re there,” Chief Hall said.

If the annual agreement was approved, Officer Roulet would be available four days a week. The principal could choose when she’d like Officer Roulet to be there.

“The impact that an officer has in the school, in the eight years that I was there, I never had a complaint from a parent or a complaint from the community,” Chief Hall said of his time in Winthrop. “I have never seen anyone in my 35 years in the job that fits that role so well as Kristen does. It’s an immense gift to the town.”

Chief Hall told school committee members that years after he was in that DARE role, he saw a non-commissioned officer at an event. Chief Hall had been the man’s DARE officer.

“‘What you said worked,’” Chief Hall said the man told him. “You don’t measure that.”

“The young kids here, in the future, I know they will remember whoever is in the resource officer position,” Chief Hall added.

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SUPPORT FOR THE POSITION

Shannon Snurkowski, a first grade teacher, spoke first in public comment, beginning a litany of support from those attending the meeting.

“In first grade we are very, very strong proponents of community. What’s in our community. Who is in our community. How we can help our community and how can our community can help us,” Snurkowski said. “I think having a resource officer, the connection with anyone outside of this physical structure is very very important and can really influence six and seven year olds. It’s hard to be a little six or seven year old right now. It’s a challenging world and the more support we have the better.”

“I have seen the faces of kids light up when they see Officer Roulet,” Angela Paulsen, a literacy teacher told school committee members during public comment.

Paulsen said it’s interesting to see that the kids that might be having the most challenges in their lives, flock to her for a hug.

“I’ve seen that multiple times,” she told committee members. “It’s a tool in our back pocket to help us deal with any type of crisis that might come up.”

Bonnie Norwood, who teaches science and math in grades 6-8, agreed.

“They really do respect her when she comes in,” Norwood said of Officer Roulet. “She’s so inviting and welcoming to all those children. I think she’s a wonderful addition to what we have in the school.”

Tremont Town Manager Jesse Dunbar, spoke as a parent of three, reiterating that there has been “nothing but positive energy and positive feedback” from the people in the community and at the school about Officer Roulet and her possibly being the SRO.

“I just don’t have a single negative thing or thought about her being here,” Dunbar said.

Kristy Smith, the school’s administrative assistant said, “I’ve also seen Officer Roulet de-escalate situations with kids that staff members were having a hard time doing. And she just comes over and calmly talks to them and it quiets them down. She’s positive. She’s knowledgable and she’s also very professional acting.”

Smith also mentioned that funding the position doesn’t come from the school’s budget, but the police department’s.

“That’s a win-win,” Smith said.

Another woman who works in the office said that having a consistent presence of an officer that the students know makes times when an officer might have to come in on other business less frightening or jarring.

Southwest Harbor Select Board Chair Noah Burby echoed the other comments, adding that the select board’s strategic plan includes trying to improve community policing in Southwest Harbor. This, he said, would do so.

At the end of the meeting, another Southwest Harbor woman (who we are not naming to respect the privacy of her family) spoke to the intervention of Officer Elias Burne who is the SRO at the Mount Desert Island High School and the elementary schools in Bar Harbor. Because Officer Burne has first-hand knowledge and interactions with kids, he has been able to help some when they’ve gotten in trouble, brokering situations and finding paths with the students and community members to keep kids from having records while still learning valuable lessons about responsibility and civic kindness.

That, she suggested, is invaluable and hard to quantify.

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COMMITTEE MEMBER WORRIES AND QUESTIONS

School Superintendent Mike Zboray spoke to the concept of community policy and how at another local school committee meeting in Bar Harbor, one of the things a committee member had talked about was the two-way relationship between law enforcement and the community and how it is about partnership, about problem solving, and about longterm relationships.

“It’s not just a one-way street for the kids,” Zboray said.

There are connections between students in the school and outside it, he said.

Southwest Harbor School Committee Chair John Bench asked about who determines who the SRO would be.

“It’s between the administration and the police department,” Zboray said. The administrators would interview the possible officer and had the ability to say no.

Zboray said when picking for the SRO for Bar Harbor, Mount Desert, and the high school, the administrators interviewed three applicants. One, he said, was a definite no and they would not have proceeded with the position if that officer had been the only applicant.

Chief Hall said that if Officer Roulet left, he wouldn’t put forward another one of his officers. They are all good officers, he said, and could potentially be appropriate in another few years.

“You do not want Rambo in the school,” Chief Hall said. “None of them have her personality.”

School committee member Jacques Taylor asked about the mindset of an officer outside the school approaching illegal activity rather than inside the school.

The officer is a mandated reporter like school staff and medical professionals so they would have to report if a child was being harmed.

“The gift that a good SRO has is their use of discretion,” Chief Hall said.

Taylor also asked about the social work component to the job. He asked about if Officer Roulet would have the hours she already has bolstered by more training.

Chief Hall said that Officer Roulet has met all the Texas requirements.

To be a Maine SRO, you have to be a certified officer and receive specific training. After that there is mandated training on the law enforcement side. On the school side there are trainings as well, he said.

Zboray said that SRO discretion is very important. The MOU was built through the American Civil Liberties Union and meant to imbibe the culture that is in the school.

“Not all MOUs and SROs are created equal,” Zboray said.

Bench worried the school committee may not be hearing from the people who are not supportive of having an officer in the building with a sidearm. How do you contend with a child or staff person who has trauma related to firearms, he asked.

“I love the support,” he said, but he wanted to be sure that they are cognizant of the other side of the discussion.

“If there are individuals that feel that way, I really think they should feel comfortable bringing their concerns to staff here, to you folks, and at an appropriate time the school bring that to my attention,” Chief Hall said. “I certainly don’t want to have our presence in the building create a traumatic experience.”

Once that happened to him.

“I walked into a library and the person in the library went into an absolute meltdown. I had no idea. I had no clue what was going on. She was just absolutely terrified of the uniform, the presence, everything else,” Chief Hall said. “That hurt. A, I didn’t know. B, I never got an opportunity to address it afterwards.”

He said if they know of anyone, maybe they could talk to them, and then maybe allow him or Zboray to address that concern with them in a forum that’s not so public.

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DATA WANTED

“We don’t create or accept educational policy without data. Never in my term have we seen something about data,” school committee member Susan Allen said.

Allen said she’d seen no quantitative data, nothing that wasn’t anecdotal.

“Are school shootings decreasing? Are suicides decreasing? Is behavior improving. I want to know a real reason other than ‘it feels good’ to do this,” she said about having the position in the school.

She agrees that community policing is a good goal, but that it doesn’t necessarily need to be based out of the school.

“I’ve lived in Southwest for 20 years and I’ve never seen a cop walking around. Where I’ve met and got to know my police officers in Mount Desert was sitting on my lawn in Somesville. Because there were beat cops,” she said.

That was an important experience, she said.

“I live here. I’m very involved in this town. I don’t have any communication or relationship with the police department. Not that every citizen should. I don’t feel warmth and community mindedness in a way that you’re trying to encourage, and I like that concept,” she said. “So, data.”

She would want to make sure that the MOU did not allow the SRO to share data on the students outside of the building. The goal is to better the student and keep them safe. “That’s something the AOS board felt was very important and we do, too.”

There are a couple of times when information would have to be shared, Chief Hall told those gathered.

“When we’re a mandatory reporter, that’s one of them. However, the state law says that if Bobby walks through the front door and I know there’s an active warrant for him, I must arrest. And that’s a state law. The school can’t create a policy that says you can’t do that because the state law trumps that,” he said in a scenario where Bobby would be an adult.

“Arrest warrants for students, that’s not what I’m talking about,” Chief Hall said.

Allen said that if a police officer is at the school only as an “added extra,” the school shouldn’t rely on them for services they may not be trained to provide, such as mental health support.

“If my leg has fallen off, I want to go see a doctor, not an informal officer,” Allen said.

She said if they need more mental health resources in the building, the committee would support that.

“If there are safety issues if people are feeling—I get it—safer with Officer Roulet in the building, but is the reason just because she’s a police officer or why . . . why is that. Is there other ways it could be addressed as well? Just to have both sides of it,” Bench said.

Keeping the school as safe as possible is the goal, Bench said.

“This is a public school so you’re going to kids home lives every where from great to very un-great. So you get that mix of kids in the school—having a police officer, having a counselor, having a social worker, if they are all intertwined together somehow, I think there’s enough different resources for these kids to go different directions,” school committee member Clifford Noyes said. “Everything can make someone uncomfortable. I was scared of bald people as a kid.”

He said it’s reality. It’s life.

“It’s a cruel world,” he said.

When he was a student, Noyes didn’t remember any extra resources. There was a guidance counselor and a principal.

“And that’s it,” he said. He thought that the public schools should have and use every option available.

“It’s the who and the match,” said Interim Principal Carolyn Todd. She said she worked well with Officer Roulet when she a counselor prior to her appointment as interim principal this fall. “Kristen in particular brings a real brightness to the school and an energy.”

“This is tough,” Taylor said. “It’s weird. It’s as if she wasn’t a police officer and we were hiring a guidance counselor, I’d be like I’m all in. Let’s make sure she can talk to you. The complicated thing for me, this is just because who I am, is the police aren’t the folks I’m going to turn to when I need help. That’s like the last backstop. Right? Law enforcement. So, there’s something I can’t quite get my words around, but everything about Officer Roulet seems outstanding. It’s the ‘officer’ part that is just stuck for me. Right?”

He wondered where that aspect fits. It was not a deal breaker, he said, but it was the part he has been struggling with the most.

Hall said the SRO can not have a disciplinary role in the school. He said that he could also change Officer Roulet’s attire so that she’s in a soft uniform. After the Columbine School shooting, the mindset about officers having their weapons in school changed.

Hall said they are now staffed to the point where they can walk the beat, which most often occurs on Sunday.

“This really is Mayberry. I don’t know if you’ve been out,” he said. “We don’t have the problems here that others do, and that’s a blessing.”

“This is obviously difficult. It feels very divisive,” committee member Maria Spallino said.

She also hoped for data to help ground the decision particularly because there are different opinions. She does think that the anecdotal piece is important.

“I do trust you guys. I trust the educators here. I trust the staff in this building very much. And so, I do want us to feel like we’re hearing you. I think seeing this turnout now the second month in a row” bears significantly, Spallino said to those assembled. “I think it would be helpful to round out the conversation to have some grounding data.”

The data is murky, Zboray said, because programs across the country are different. They are going to try to get some data, however, by the December meeting.

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BUDGET

Zboray also presented the preliminary budget for the next school year. He likened it to a snapshot for the high impact areas.

The estimated carryover from last year’s budget is approximately $535,000 which is more than expected due to Blue Cross and Blue Shield savings of $155k and $53k in salary savings. The school expects to spend more for some special education services and for an education technician in regular instruction. The school also received $17k more in a state subsidy than anticipated.

However, at the moment, the budget is coming in approximately $181,193 less than last year at $4,167,614. It includes a 2.85% cost of living adjustment (COLA).

“It’s really kind of a crystal ball,” Zboray said. “We’re doing pretty good in terms of what we’re looking at.”

Pemetic also has a healthy special education reserve if someone comes in with needs that are not budgeted for. The AOS also has a reserve.

Enrollment is expected to increase by two students to 144. Those numbers for the last few years have included pre-k.

“It’s encouraging to see the enrollment going up,” Bench said.

Enrollment was last over 160 students in 2019-2020. It was last over 200 students in 2001-2002 school year.

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PRINCIPAL’S REPORT

People have been amazing and supportive as she’s begun shepherding the school, Interim Principal Carolyn Todd said. She’ll look to adding in attendance pieces to her report next month.

Jesse Field has been hired as the school counselor. They’ve also been doing a lot of district-wide work with Amanda Wilson about navigating behaviors. There is still an opening for SPED Ed Tech III and a substitute bus driver.

The water filtration system installation is being planned and the school is trying to build up its music program. Author David Covell visited pre-K through third grade students who attended workshops in the library and received a signed copy of his book Gather Round.

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The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Brochures of Maine.

Photos: Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story.

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LINKS TO LEARN MORE

Principal’s report

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