When Officer W. Barr arrived at Grady this year, she had no idea what to expect.

Barr, who originally worked in South Carolina, had spent time working for the DeKalb County Police Department. About five months ago, she saw Dr. Marquenta Hall-Sands, the executive director of the Office of Atlanta Public Schools Safety and Security, on television during a press conference.

“When I saw Dr. Hall on the news one morning, she was talking about an interest meeting about how APS was creating their own police department and were strictly working with the schools,” Barr said.

Barr went to Carver High School for the meeting and knew she wanted to be a part of APS’s  historical change, the creation  of its own a police force after years of relying on officers from the Atlanta Police Department. Barr said she has always loved kids, and she jumped at the opportunity to combine her police work and working with students.

“When I heard about the school resource officers, I didn’t know exactly what [the job] was,” Barr said. “I went into a school and saw cops walking around with kids.”

APS’s police force functions similarly to police departments Barr has been a part of before she joined.

“We are actually a police department,” Barr said. “You have your municipality’s, your chief, lieutenants. We don’t really have captains.”

The officers are also known as school resource officers, or SROs, not police officers, though their powers are the same in terms of the ability to arrest students if necessary. In order to do that, the SROs are also given similar equipment to police officers in the field.

“When we came in during the summer, [APS] issued us the vests, the uniform, the utility belt, our badge when we got sworn in, and the only thing that we don’t have on the belt that we would have with us on the streets is a taser,” Barr said. “They approved body cameras, and so that will be the next thing that we are issued.”

While they do have the authority to do so, Grady’s new officers, Barr and D. Hammond, are aware that they are working at a high school, so they don’t always jump to arrest students when an altercation occurs.

The officers noticed this emphasis was highlighted during training over the summer. They were instructed on how to deal with all types of situations with all types of students.

Resource officers “all get the same training for how to deal with all students,” Barr said. “It’s not separate based on the school level.”

At high schools, however, the police force does make sure each school has two officers, a male and a female, in order to deal with special types of situations and ensure that all students feel comfortable if they need to talk to an officer.

Barr also said the 55 officers at all schools get two days of training specifically for how to deal with special needs students. They are instructed on how to talk to the kids and make sure they aren’t causing anyone or themselves harm.

The application process, however, was a little strange for Barr. Most of the officers around her had a preference for whether they wanted to be assigned to an elementary, middle or high school, but when the assignments were announced, no officer was guaranteed their preference.

“When we got our assignments, and I found out that I was coming to Grady, a lot of the other SROs that have worked in the school system were like ‘Oh, you’re going to Grady? That is a really cool school,’” Barr said.

Even after this, Barr still didn’t know what to expect from Grady.

“I really had no expectation as far as the kids go; young adults are gonna be young adults,” Barr said. “So [I looked forward to] just being able to come in and bring a different perspective on policing.”

So far, most of her experiences have been minor situations.  Barr recently had a run in with a student who referenced the Black Lives Matter movement in an attempt to get out of going to class.

“I definitely knew I was in high school then,” Barr said. She also had an encounter with a student who refused to take his hat off, violating the dress code.

“I saw him in the hallway and said ‘Hey you should take your hat off in the building,’ and he cooperated and took his hat off and went to class,” Barr said. “So then as I was walking through the halls, I saw him sitting in the hallway with the cap on his head.”

Because Officer Barr had experienced the new training methods created for the school system’s police force, she approached the situation in an alternative way from previous SROs due to the training the different SROs received. She discussed with the student why he felt the need to wear his hat.

“He told me he felt funny without his hat on his head, and the teacher told him that he could learn outside the classroom with the cap on because they did not want that in their classroom,” Barr said. “Long story short, this student has learning problems.”

As a school resource officer, Barr hopes the students are aware that she and her partner, Hammond, are here to help, and that anyone who wants to talk to them should.

“We are trying to get to the root of the problem and find a solution instead of just expelling them or taking them to jail,” Barr said.