EL MIRAGE, AZ - "This is Sgt Weyland with the El Mirage Police Department," Pattie Buck said as she introduced a visitor to a class at Dysart Elementary School.
Thousands of elementary school students in the Dysart school district are getting acquainted with officers from the El Mirage Police Department.
It's part of a new community policing program that began last week.
Officers say it's an effort to develop community connections.
"It's real important to get our officers a little more dialed in to the schools than they have been already," Assistant Chief Bill Louis said.
The El Mirage Police force can't afford to place officers in school all day every day, so they came up with a system where officers will be required to stop by their assigned schools several times a week to check in, and engage the students face-to-face.
"You get to be with 5th, 6th, 7th graders, those kids are very impressionable," Louis said.
"This is the time when they can make a change in their life one way or another. That's why we are focusing the program at this age of the kids at the school there."
Louis says, "We believe there are going to be long term positive effects that come out of this."
Officers and school administrators say it will help build trust between officers, students, teachers and parents.
"This is a person you can go to if you just want to talk to someone," Buck said. "But, it's also a person you can go to if you are having a problem or if you're seeing some kind of trouble anywhere."
They hope the officer liason program will have an effect outside of the classroom.
"The parents get to see the officers, the staff get to see the officers, and they're building that, and there's that ripple, and it goes out to everybody," Buck said.
Officers and administrators say that trust will pay off for years to come.
