WestEd’s Justice & Prevention Research Center is conducting the first large-scale evaluation of training for school resource officers, helping the field understand what SROs are learning and whether it changes how they work in schools.
The Challenge
Police are in schools across the country, but questions persist. Do they make schools safer? Does training actually prepare them for unique demands of working with young people in an educational environment?
Experts agree that specialized training matters. But until now, no one had studied it at scale. Which training approaches work? What do officers take away? And does it change their behavior on the job?
How We’re Taking Action
Funded by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), we’re partnering with the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO)—the largest provider of training for SROs in the United States—to find out.
Over 1 year, we’re capturing data from more than 4,000 trainees across NASRO’s training programs, which range from 12 hours to 40 hours and cover topics such as adolescent mental health, school law, and crime prevention.
We assessed the training itself—reviewing curriculum quality, content relevance, and how well it’s delivered.
We measured what trainees learned—using pre- and post-training assessments to track changes in knowledge and skills.
We followed up 6 months later—surveying and interviewing officers to learn how they applied their training in the field and whether it changed their approach to school safety.
Findings will help NASRO improve its training and give the broader field its first evidence-based look at what SRO training can and should accomplish.
Resources
- Boal, A., McKenna, J., & Canady, M. (2025, October). Best practices in training school resource officers: What are we learning from evaluating the nation’s largest training program? [Conference presentation]. International Association of Chiefs of Police Annual Conference, Denver, CO.
- Boal, A., Russo, S., Zimiles, J, & Sutherland, H. (2025, November). Early Investigation into the quality of training for school resource officers [Conference presentation]. American Society for Criminology Annual Conference, Washington, DC, United States.
- Fronius, T., & Boal, A. (2025, November). Impact of school resource officers and their training [Conference presentation]. American Society for Criminology Annual Conference, Washington, DC, United States.
What Sets Our Work Apart
We Sit at the Intersection of Law Enforcement and Education
The combination of expertise on law enforcement training and education systems is essential for understanding what it takes to prepare officers to work effectively in schools.A Proven Framework for Evaluating Law Enforcement Training
We have used this structured approach across multiple, large-scale NIJ-funded studies, bringing rigor and comparability to a field that has lacked both.