School resource officers have much less to worry about on a daily basis than regular patrol officers do, because they’re in a controlled environment in school. Dover Area School District Resource Officer, Mark Allen, enjoys being a SRO because he loves being around kids. He actually went to school to be an elementary school teacher and got a degree in Language Arts. He ended up not using it, because he realized he wanted to be a police officer. Before Dover, Allen was a SRO at Spring Grove Area School District, and he has now been at Dover for five years. Before specifically being a SRO, Allen was a police officer for twenty-eight years at the Northern Regional Police Department.

Despite his experience Allen continues to be surprised by students. Allen said “The craziest thing is that even though kids know that I’m there, they still fight and act up”. For him, it’s not the fights themselves that are crazy, it’s the boldness of students that fight in front of him.

Allen could have retired three years ago but decided to stay on as long as he possibly could. In two years he will be forced to retire,  after about thirty years of being a police officer and an SRO. The NRPD will lose a great police officer and DASD will lose a fantastic school resource officer.