Jastal retires as Monett school resource officer

Jay Jastal, who has served as the senior school resources officer in the Monett school district since early 2012, officially retired last week. A reception in his honor was held on Feb 12. Jastal, a retired US Marine, has had a long career in law enforcement, coming to Monett from the Aurora department and serving as a detective lieutenant. He served as Monett’s fourth school resource officer, following Jarrod Jarvis, Chuck Rhinehart and Dave Curts. Jastal said each brought a personal stamp to the position.
 
While he initially oversaw programs at nine schools, including the sending schools of St. Lawrence and Trinity Lutheran, Jastal leaves with Monett now having three SROs: Shay Snodgrass at the Early Childhood Center, Marvin McCracken at the intermediate school, and Dwayne Rice at the middle school. Jastal was based at the high school and the Scott Regional Technology Center, a position that has yet to be filled. The school district also has what it calls a school protection officer, a post held by Scott Wright, that concentrates on school safety, based at Monett Elementary. 
 
“The job of SRO has become a specialized unit,” Jastal said. “You have to know police and patrolling stuff, but there’s so much more to know about kids of all ages. It’s a little tricky at times. It doesn’t fit with everyone’s personality.” 
 
Job of many hats
 
Jastal described the SRO job as part counselor, part teacher, and part law enforcement. When he started in the role, he noted school counselors were academic advisors. If they encountered drug problems or suicidal issues, those would be referred to the SRO. 
 
“There’s always more being added to our plate,” Jastal said. “We’re not there to discipline kids. We direct those problems to the assistant principal or whoever does that. Originally, we were in schools to keep kids safe. Now we’re involved in planning and training teachers, helping families out. You’ve got to really know the kids and their families. To me it’s important that the SRO lives in the community where they work. You have to build those relationships, not just see kids a couple hours a day.” 
 
Jastal started teaching the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program in the late 1990s. He noted that program has also evolved. “I’ve had kids of kids I taught,” he said. “We’re teaching something totally different now. It was all focused on drugs, smoking and drinking are bad. One time I taught a lesson on graffiti tagging in Aurora, something we’d never seen there. Suddenly we saw cases of it. I never taught that again. It was like we put that idea into their heads. 
 
“Now we concentrate on making good decisions. Kids act on impulses. Now I get them to think about the consequences, good or bad, if you make that choice. Big lessons are on communication. Those days of scaring kids is long gone. That’s not our job as law enforcement.” 
 
Society causing change
 
Jastal felt kids are much the same as they have always been. What has changed, he stressed, is society and the means of accessing it, particularly through cellphones. “Cellphones change stuff,” he said. “The stuff they see on TV changes. The innocence that went into middle school, kids are losing that just from what they’re exposed to, much more adult oriented material.”
 
In this new environment, Jastal no longer approaches his job as a task with a beginning and end. 
 
“You have to build relationships,” he said. “Kids have to have trust in you. That’s the biggest thing. If they trust you, they will bring stuff to you. If they don’t trust you, they won’t tell you about the kid who may bring a gun to school. Building relationships with students, faculty, and the community is the most important thing. You have to know where your resources are. Sometimes you don’t know. At the end of the day, what is our goal here – to help kids and families. We’re all here fighting the same battle. You can’t let personal stuff get in the way.” 
 
Jastal believes Missouri ahead of other states
 
Serving on the state board for school resource officers and attending national conferences, Jastal said he believes Missouri is ahead of most other states on school safety. Other states send representatives to see how Missouri does it. Missouri SROs are connected with the Missouri Police Chiefs Association and train through the Centers of Education Training in Jefferson City, gaining strategies and emphasizing safety. 
 
Asked if he would have approached his job differently over the years, Jastal admitted, “I’m human. I make mistakes. I was in the Marines for 24 years. Sometimes I might have said things the wrong way. When I’d drive from one school to the next, I realized I’ve got to talk differently to different aged students and the faculty working with them. If I’d known that then, I’d have been educating myself a little more. It’s challenging.” 
 
Even though some days may not have worked out as well as he’d hoped, Jastal recalled he often runs into former students. 
 
“I was recently at the gym,” he said. “A guy came up who had a beard, so I didn’t recognize him. He had come from a family with a history of drug and physical abuse. He said, ‘I want to tell you I appreciate what you did. Watching my family, I knew I didn’t want to go down that road.’ People remember. I’ve had a lot of situations like that. I’ve had kids I knew when they were in kindergarten. Now they’re police officers here.” 
 
Retirement plans
 
As someone who stays busy, Jastal is facing retirement without any plans to keep working. He is moving to Texas, where his wife, Sandy, has been staying near her father north of Dallas since last September. His daughter, Mary Elizabeth, is going to college in Abilene. The idea of becoming inactive, however, is not something Jastal has grasped yet. 
 
“Financially, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to work for free,” he said. “I have several retirements, so I don’t need to work. I will likely volunteer at church. I may substitute teach. I’ll find something to do. Maybe I’ll go back to school and learn something new.”