Ketchum Named Resource Officer At NHS

By Andrew Gorosko

Having traversed local roads for more than 14 years as a police patrol officer, Officer Steve Ketchum decided it was time for a new challenge and has taken the post of school resource officer at Newtown High School.

“I’ve gotten a great reception at the school,” said Officer Ketchum, 35, who joined the police department in January 1989. Officer Ketchum took over the resource officer post early this month from Jason Frank, who has become a police detective.

Officer Ketchum said he is becoming acclimated to his new work environment.

Unlike patrol work, which involves hours of solitary driving, interspersed with occasional emergencies and multiple routine tasks, working within the high school means being surrounded by more than 1,500 students, school faculty, and staff, he noted.

There is more activity at the school on a regular basis, involving much more interpersonal contact, than one encounters in police patrol work, Officer Ketchum noted.

As the high school’s resource officer, Officer Ketchum is attached to the police department’s seven-member detective division.

As resource officer, Officer Ketchum will assist school administrators with law enforcement in a school environment, including student discipline. School resource officers also have an educational function, serving as mentors, role models, or exemplars for students who seek their counsel.

Officer Ketchum said he may assist in student instruction concerning law enforcement, the legal system, and criminal justice.

“I will have a chance to be proactive in law enforcement, rather than reactive,” he said. At the school, the resource officer keeps regular office hours at the school’s security office.

Officer Ketchum said he plans to continue programs that were run by Officer Frank, as well as start some of his own new educational programs.

As with any new position, getting to know the people is an important part of the job, Officer Ketchum explained. “I’ve gotten a very warm reception,” he said.

Officer Ketchum is a member of the police department’s bicycle patrol, along with Gladys Pisani, who is the school resource officer at Newtown Middle School.

Officer Ketchum expects that being the high school’s resource officer will allow him more time for bicycle patrol work in the summertime than was possible when he was a patrol officer.

Also, Officer Ketchum assists the police department with firearms instruction and with managing vehicle maintenance. He formerly was attached to the state police’s narcotics task force. Officer Ketchum, who lives in the area, is single.

Of the new resource officer, Police Chief Michael Kehoe said, “Steve has a vast amount of police experience in dealing with the public at large…He has the right demeanor and experience, which makes him suited for the position of school resource officer.”

Police officers who have served as school resource officers and as youth officers often have advanced through the ranks, entering management positions in the police department.

“What happens in that position is [that] you gain a lot of skills and experience,” Chief Kehoe said. The public spotlight shines on officers who work in the schools and their work is noticed, Chief Kehoe said. Such specialized police work requires the motivation to improve, seek new challenges, and broaden one’s responsibilities, he said.

Chief Kehoe served as a youth officer and then as the high school’s resource officer in the 1990s, before ascending through the ranks to head the police department.