School Resource Officer Cherie Somavia will be back on Gilroy’s
campuses come September thanks to a deal struck by police and
school district officials to save her position.
School Resource Officer Cherie Somavia will be back on Gilroy’s campuses come September thanks to a deal struck by police and school district officials to save her position.
Somavia served as the school resource officer for four years before Police Chief Denise Turner sent her back to graveyard patrol duty to reinforce the core functions of an already understaffed police force. For years, the city fully funded the position but can no longer afford to be so generous, Turner said.
Alarmed by the prospect of not having an officer on Gilroy’s middle and high school campuses, trustees unanimously voted to fund half the position. Police will come up with the other half by rerouting grant money that was originally supposed to buy surveillance cameras. The position costs about $160,000.
Although Somavia spent the majority of her days stationed at Gilroy High School, she also tended to issues that arose at other middle and high school campuses, paying the rare visit to an elementary school on occasion. She lent an invaluable set of eyes and ears to the district, providing not only proactive, educational opportunities to teachers and students, but also a disciplinary presence that changes the way students behave, trustees said.
In January, Somavia arrested two GHS students found in possession of ecstasy tablets. Rumors circulating on campus led her to one boy, who had about two dozen tablets on him – an indication that the drugs were for sale – Somavia said. A second boy was arrested soon after with about a dozen tablets.
When a known gang member on probation returned to campus after disappearing for several weeks, Somavia removed him from campus based on her knowledge of his history and discovered he was carrying a knife, she said.
“Students can’t learn if they don’t feel safe,” she said.
Trustees decisively approved the district’s contribution to the position and even brought up the possibility of funding a second officer as early as this school year to patrol Christopher High School and share Somavia’s duties at the other district high schools and middle schools.
“We’re just getting too big for one person,” trustee Denise Apuzzo said. “We have too many programs, too many students. One person can’t do it all. This is a need, an absolute need.”
GHS Principal Marco Sanchez said he would be willing to find funds in his school’s budget to put toward the cause.
“In this post-Columbine world, it’s hard to imagine a high school without (a school resource officer),” he said.
District staff will work to come up with their share of the funds and may have already identified unused workers compensation funds, Superintendent Deborah Flores said. Trustees didn’t commit to funding a second position but agreed to consider it in the future.
Somavia was happy to hear the trustees’ decision.
“I love this position,” she said.
