Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Daily News is doing a series of features on some of the new and returning School Resource Officers (SRO) to let people get to know them as the new school year kicks off. Our next story features Franklin Forest Elementary School SRO Kiawni Slonaker.

LaGrange Police Officer Kiawni Slonaker is relatively new to the force having served with the department for roughly two years. Being an SRO is an even newer experience for her but she’s ready to go and keep the kids and staff at Franklin Forest safe.

“I’m brand new. So this is the beginning of, I’ll say week two. We had kids at school last week but just for that Friday,” Slonaker said.

Slonaker said unlike many of the SROs serving at Troup County Schools, she did not seek out the position.

“I’m a little different. I was asked if I wanted to do this,” Slonaker said. “They asked me if this was something I was interested in. I have a little bit of a history with education. I taught private school Pre-K for a little while before I came to the police department where I worked patrol.”

Slonaker also previously worked with children at Twin Cedars Youth and Family Services, a non-profit that provides residential and community-based services for in-need families and children.

“As much as it wasn’t intended, I’ve always found myself in child development roles, so they asked me to come here, and I was willing, a little reluctant, but willing, because this is completely different than patrol, and ironically, I love it,” Slonaker said.

Slonaker said she loves it but she has been humbled already.

“I have been deeply humbled. These past two weeks, because I was expecting all 700 of my kids to love me and to listen and to just have this job where I can kiss babies and hug kids all day, even in elementary that’s not what it is,” Slonaker said.

“You’re dealing with children with trauma. You’re dealing with behaviorally challenged children, mentally [handicapped] children,” Slonaker said. 

Slonaker said sometimes it’s a battle, but the kids are still worthy of love, despite all the challenging kids and the trauma that can make them difficult.

Slonaker said that SROs at elementary, middle and high schools have to take different tactics. Even on an elementary level, the schools are very different.

“They’ve created communities within the schools,” Slonaker said. “I’ve learned already in two weeks that these are my kids. This is a sense of community they’ve built here. This is how I engage with them, which even at an elementary level, is completely different than Clearview or Hollis Hand.”

Like other SROs, Slonaker said her primary role is to protect the children, but that isn’t her only job.

“Obviously, my job is to protect the children and the staff. That’s what I signed up to do. That’s what I’m ready and willing to do. But it is so much more than that. I don’t want to say a counselor, because that takes education that I don’t have, but I can provide informal counseling or a safe place, that shoulder. Sometimes I even see myself as a mother. I look at all these kids and I’m going to treat them like I treat my own,” she said.

“Sometimes that means snapping your fingers and saying, ‘Hey, I saw that. Don’t do it again,’ Slonaker said. “That’s kind of how I see my job.”