MDI High School approves role at that school. Tremont and Southwest Harbor Still Working on Potential Agreements

Carrie Jones and Shaun Farrar

Dec 13, 2025

SOUTHWEST HARBOR—Recently, a little boy was hit by a truck on Mount Desert Island while he was crossing the street. Southwest Harbor Police Officer Kristen Roulet responded to the scene, beating the ambulance there.

“She laid right down on the ground with him and looked at his face and he said, ‘I know you. I know you.’ She laid right on the ground with him until he was in the ambulance. I’m sorry that’s just priceless to me,” Dencie Thomas McEnroe, a Pemetic Elementary School staff member said.

McEnroe’s voice broke as she explained this to the Southwest Harbor School Committee, which was continuing its multi-month discussion as to whether to have a school resource officer in the Pemetic School.

Officer Roulet would be in that position if it is approved.

According to Southwest Harbor Police Chief John Hall, she’s perfect for it.

Many staff members and parents have agreed at previous meetings as well as at this one on December 11.

Kiersten Jester spoke to some of her students being under the care of Officer Roulet during the incident.

“I as a teacher felt much better knowing that she had a relationship with the kids and when they were in a situation where it really was an emergency situation,” Jester said. “She kept them safe.… I am sure that when they saw her face in that very scary situation they felt much better. There is no doubt in my mind that she made them feel better.”

At the last meeting this week, school board members said that they weren’t necessarily against the position, but were performing due diligence and adhering to process, working with the police chief to make the best memorandum of understanding between the school and the department as possible. That MOU would govern what the school resource officer would do in the school and her responsibilities.

Both the Tremont and Southwest Harbor schools are looking at potentially having a school resource officer. The position is paid for via the Southwest Harbor Police Department budget. Each individual community in the school system approves or rejects the offer.

As Mount Desert, Bar Harbor, and the high school reapproved the MOU that allows Bar Harbor Officer Elias Burne as their school resource officer, members of the public and staff at those schools spoke to how positive it was for the students to have Officer Burne there and also spoke glowingly of Officer Tim Bland who was the SRO before him.

The goal, proponents of the position said, was to build relationships, to have someone in the school and out in the community for when things go wrong for MDI kids.

Those against the position say that they aren’t comfortable with a consistent law enforcement presence in schools, worry that a school resource officer might not be the appropriate person for kids’ needs rather than a social worker or other specialist, and have also worried about school resource officers being in uniform or wearing guns.

In Southwest Harbor, Chief Hall explained that the public doesn’t see a lot of the behind the scenes work to create and tweak the MOU, which will eventually be presented to the school committee for its acceptance or rejection.

Staff member after community member after staff member in Southwest Harbor testified in favor of having Officer Roulet in the schools, but one of the testimonies came from Rory, whose best friend was in the hospital, all the way down in Portland, the same friend that had been hit on the road.

“I personally love Officer Roulet and I think she should be here,” he said from a seat behind the school committee’s table in the packed Pemetic Library.

She took him to see Ben, the boy who had been injured in the accident. He got to be in the front seat of the cruiser, he said passionately.

Officer Roulet has been in the Pemetic Elementary School multiple times though not as a resource officer, which was part of the reason, the school committee said, for creating a MOU, covering the school’s liability and formalizing an arrangement, or not. When she is there, her presence is usually greeted with cheers when class isn’t in session or high fives, hugs and questions about what it’s like to be a police officer.

“Why are we against it? The other schools have them. The other schools have Elias so why is this school against it?” Jason Gordius asked. “We want equity in all the schools. Northeast. Bar Harbor and the high school have one. How come we don’t have one?”

“Jason, that’s why we’re talking about it right now,” School Superintendent Mike Zboray said. “The board appreciates listening and we appreciate people sharing their perspectives and their experiences.”

The kids should have the say. The teachers should have the say, Gordius said.

“She even drove down to Portland to see Ben. I don’t know who else does that?” Gordius said referring to the boy who had been hurt in the accident. “She is the first line of defense. That’s what keeps us safe. She’s also there monitoring. That’s the biggest difference in the world. Time is against everybody in that situation and you’re putting every one of these teachers and every one of these students in jeopardy….They are the ones on the front line. They take the shot. They are almost guaranteed to be shot. That’s how it works. She steps in front of it.”

He said that’s who Officer Roulet is, that’s how she works.

“She loves these kids,” he said.

Kyle Rounsaval recently retired from the Coast Guard and was its firearms instructor for the past 11 years. He said that knowing that his son is in a school with a resource officer makes him feel safer about his son in school.

“They know the kids. They know their situations. They see demeanor changes. Something that teachers notice” as well, Rounsaval said, but the resource officer has always had that outside perspective. “Knowing that he’s safe and protected . . . and knowing that she’s here and able to talk to the kids. Active shooter aside, knowing that she’s here to interject and help and talk to kids.”

That matters, he explained.

“It makes me feel good. Fire department wise she’s been a tremendous help on different emergency scenes. Whether it’s a kid that’s hurt or injured, she has that mother aspect. She knows how to talk to kids,” he added.

Jennifer LaHaye who has a kindergartener said, “Officer Roulet has played such an impact for my own child.”

“I worked with many resource officers,” she said during her 8.5 years as a child protective case worker for Maine.

“The amount of intervention that they were able to help assist with is incredible. You don’t always see that when you are not in that type of line of work. You don’t know everything that’s happening or happens in Hancock County. When I first joined I was flabbergasted by the amount of abuse and neglect,” LaHaye said. “Having a resource officer in the school is so imperative to be able to have that connection with those children to have an outlet. A lot of children don’t have a safe person to go to or they don’t come from families that necessarily look at a police officer as being somebody who is safe or someone they can talk to.”

That type of community connection is huge, she said.

Chief Hall spoke to a report on school resource officers from the US Department of Justice in 2023, which covered 2019-2020.

“If you don’t want an SRO in your school, this is the report you want to use. If you do want an SRO in your school, this is the report you want to use,” Chief Hall said.

Officer Roulet created a three-page overview of the positives and negatives gathered from the report. The difficulty in tracking statistics for SROs is that there are a variety of how they work and interact in schools. Some are straight-up law enforcement officers. Some do not do any law enforcement duties at all unless there is an emergency need.

The Southwest Harbor MOU, as it is developing, school committee member Jacques Newell Taylor said, is addressing every concern that the board has had. “I feel very confident that the work that’s being done is solid.”

“We are not insensitive, huddling, conniving people. We are smart. We do care. We do think just like you do,” he said, lowering the tension in the room and eliciting some chuckles.

Newell Taylor wondered how the board could continue to move forward and have better discussions and if there are ways to have respect in the room even if in the future they have hard issues. They are all neighbors, he said, which is important to remember.

School committee member Maria Spallino agreed, saying, “I hope everyone knows that we really do care.”

Having people come in month after month to speak in favor of the position is impactful, Spallino said. It’s compelling. She later added that she wished there was always a great deal of staff and community input.

Multiple board members said that they have positive intent and that they are doing their due diligence, which can make the process longer.

One third grade teacher, Susan Raven, explained that the school has had “an amazing relationship so far with Officer Roulet” so far.

There was a question and answer with Officer Roulet, she said.

“Some of the questions were kind of easy in a way and some of the questions were tough and powerful,” she explained.

The eight year olds were focused on Officer Roulet’s uniform, her job, but one student asked a question that resonated, Raven said.

“What’s your most powerful weapon?” one student asked.

“What she said is that her most powerful thing is her voice,” Raven explained.

The kids still bring it up, she said. They’ll say, “Remember what Officer Roulet said. She said that ‘your voice is…’”

Some others might disagree with Officer Roulet’s self-assessment. They might say that Officer Roulet’s most powerful tool, like many resource officers, is her ability to use her voice and her empathy to make connections with kids and to be right there when they need her when things go wrong.

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MDI REGIONAL HIGH SCHOOL BOARD

With absolutely no discussion at its Monday, December 8 meeting, and in a split vote, the MDI Regional High School Regular School Board approved the memorandum of understanding for the school resource officer (SRO) for the 2025-26 school year.

Discussion about the position had already occurred at the board’s previous meeting on November 17. During that meeting, board members primarily addressed two concerns with the current MOU.

One concern was in regards to the SRO being able to search “a student’s person, possessions, or locker only where there is probable cause to believe that the search will turn up evidence that the student has committed or is committing a criminal offense.”

The second concern was a lack of language limiting or eliminating the sharing of information with ICE.

Since that November 17 meeting, Zboray, Bar Harbor and Mount Desert Police Chief David Kerns, and board member Jessica Stewart helped craft a new paragraph for the MOU that is paragraph “e” of section 17 to address the concern of information sharing with ICE.

The first issue, regarding searches was a more simple fix with the empowering language and qualifiers simply being eliminated. According to Zboray, both changes were approved by Chief Kerns as far as being acceptable to the police department.

Also at that November 17 meeting, High School Principal Matt Haney shared the results of a survey that was conducted with the faculty and staff of the MDI High School in regards to the SRO position.

The survey went out to 120 members of the school employees and there were 28 responses. Of those 28 respondents, 78% were in support of an SRO and 21% were not in support of having an SRO.

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TREMONT SCHOOL COMMITTEE

The Tremont School Committee met on December 2 and one of its discussion items was to discuss the possibility of having an SRO at the Tremont Consolidated School. Approximately 15 members of the public were in the audience along with Southwest Harbor Police Chief John Hall. Tremont receives its law enforcement coverage via contract with the Town of Southwest Harbor.

Public comment was the fourth agenda item and prior to that, there was no “approval of the agenda” agenda item, which is a common occurrence at many town board and committee meetings.

School Committee Chair Keri Hayes asked if there was any public comment.

Tremont Select Board Vice Chair McKenzie Jewett asked, “You are not willing to have public comment period at the end of the meeting?”

Jewett went on to say that she thinks that is unfair because it doesn’t allow the public to comment on what the committee said during its discussion.

Kevin Buck, also a Tremont Select Board member, said that he too would like to see the committee have public comment at the end of its meetings.

Hayes said, “We are not even supposed to discuss this.”

Zboray told the committee that a committee member could motion to move public comment to the end.

Hayes said that they were going to stick with their agenda and the public comment period commenced.

“To have a resource officer, a police officer, in your school spending time with the kids, secures a peace and good feeling,” said one audience member, “A lot of things are said that are misconstrued, I mean, not the truth about police officers, and I think that kids are really smart and intuitive and to have that relationship themselves, so they know what the truth is and what kind of relationship they should have. There is no better time than now.”

Another audience member said that when she was in high school, kids would come to school with guns in their vehicles during hunting season.

“You should be representing the town and the town’s people and it shouldn’t be just your decision, thank you,” said a third member of the public.

Chief Hall gave his background as a DARE officer and SRO and explained his plans and ideals should the school approve an SRO in the school.

“I feel like it’s kind of a waste of your time, Captain John, to be here with us because what it comes down to is our MOU. So, all emotions aside, we’re gonna draft something and we are going to tell you what your presence is in our building and your either going to agree to it or your not. So, I think the general question for you guys (the committee) is: What needs to be in this MOU to approve the SRO? What would move it forward? Because we have had conversations for multiple months and we haven’t moved anything in a positive direction. While we are grateful that you graced us with your presence, it really comes down to the MOU,” said Vice Chair Jessica Bass.

Principal Jandrea True said that since Officer Kristen Roulet, the officer who would be the SRO in both Tremont and Southwest Harbor, has been in the school, the policy has always been that she is hands off of the students when it comes to a situation where a student may need to restrained for safety reasons and that Officer Roulet has always been fully respectful of those boundaries.

True also said that some of the students who appear to be the happiest to see Officer Roulet and the most thankful for her presence are the ones that you might not expect to be. She gave an example of a student who had come in to school and said that Officer Roulet was at their house at night and the student said that they were glad that it was her who showed up.

“The enforcement side of things is not anything that I am interested in from a resource officer at all, personally,” said True, “It’s really just about the relationships. And yes, we do have a lot of people in this building who already build relationships but we don’t go into their (the students’) homes, and I think that’s the difference. There is a connection between seeing someone in your home because you are unsafe and that person is also a safe figure.”

The majority of the remaining comments by committee members revolved around the importance of the MOU and ensuring that it addresses the concerns of the committee, parents, and school staff prior to having an officer in the school in an official SRO capacity.

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Photos: Shaun Farrar/Carrie Jones/Bar Harbor Story

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