ABOVE: Officer Lily Paine, Fairmont Area School’s new School Resource Officer.

FAIRMONT– Officer Lily Paine of the Fairmont Police Department is the new School Resource Officer (SRO) for the Fairmont Area School District. She takes over for former SRO, Shannon Bass, who retired from the department earlier this summer.

Paine has been an officer with the local department since 2016 and prior to that she served the community of Madelia. Paine said she became interested in the position after filling in as an SRO part-time last school year at Arise Academy.

“I got to have an opportunity to practice as an SRO last year before we knew Shannon was retiring. It really piqued my interest and when Shannon announced he was retiring, I realized the opportunity was available so I put my name in for it,” Paine explained.

She was selected for the position and officially began the new role this week.

Police Chief Mike Hunter said, “Officer Paine brings a great deal of experience with the Fairmont Police Department to the SRO position and will be an excellent resource for the students, staff and parents of Fairmont Area Schools.”

As SRO, Paine will have an office at Fairmont High School but she will divide her time between there and the elementary school building.

“At the elementary school I think traffic control tends to be an issue with drop-off and pick-up, especially at the beginning of the year when people are trying to learn that routine,” Paine explained.

Her hours will be 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Monday through Friday with the understanding that she would need to leave in an emergency to help the department. If there’s a school cancellation day because of inclement weather or a holiday break, Paine will likely work regular patrol for the department.

In order to prepare for the role, Paine took a week-long training course over the summer with NASRO, the national association for school resource officers.

“I also took a three day training that’s put on by the Minnesota School Safety Center, which is the Minnesota Department of Public Safety’s training,” Paine explained.

That training meets new state statute for SROs. Paine said the training will be required in the next two years but she wanted to be on top fit so already took the training.

“It provided me with a lot of age appropriate content. As we go through the training we get a lot of pre-put together presentations that other SROs have done and then we get to practice presentations, too,” Paine said.

She is excited to see how she can contribute to the classrooms through her new role.

“I’ve already talked to the teachers about topics they’d like me to talk about with the kids. I’m planning to talk to the 3rd grade kids about internet safety– they get their Chromebooks at that age– so we’ll talk about emails and internet because it’s a new thing for them,” Paine said.

Beyond that she’s eager to see what other topics come up in the next few weeks so that she can help prepare and protect students. Paine pointed out that everything needs to be age appropriate so she also wants to go over phone safety with the older students.

As SRO, Paine will be a resource to not only students, but parents and teachers, too. Earlier this week at a staff orientation at the high school, Paine and some other law enforcement representatives went over a building safety presentation for teachers and staff.

“We’re there for building safety of high school and elementary but we also do staff training on lock down drills and active threats. That’s something we do before school starts so that that’s all known and ready before students come to school,” Paine said.

Mostly, Paine is looking forward to getting to know the students and vice-versa. She plans to be present and at the front doors greeting students during the first weeks of school.

“I was a night shift, weekend officer so I didn’t have a lot of opportunities to be in the hallways of the schools when the kids were present. It will be a lot of fun to see them filled with kids,” Paine said.