Beaver Dam School Board Meets Its Three Resource Officers

(Beaver Dam) The Beaver Dam School Board recently had an opportunity to meet with the district’s three school resource officers. Tony Karel has been with the department for 22 years and replaced Kevin Rhode at the start of the school year. Karel says he has already responded to twice the amount of incidents than all of last year.

“This year it was like trial by fire, I hit the ground running,” Karel says, “it takes some time for kids to build trust, I’ve learned that this is a bigger job than I ever thought it would be but in the end I think its going to be really rewarding.”

Prior to this year, Beaver Dam had two school liaison officers. Andy Strachota and Matthew Edwards have both been on the job for less than one month and replace Officer Lisa Dake-Jones. Officer Edwards, who has been with the department for nearly five years, will be covering all five elementary schools.

“I usually split them about a half day at each school,” Edwards says, “so about 8am until noon, and then anywhere from 12:15pm, 12:30pm to 4:30pm which gets me there before the kids are at school and I’m there after school if there are any issues.”

Officer Strachota, who – like Officer Karel – has been with Beaver Dam for 22 years, is at the middle school. Strachota says the years he has spent coaching youth sports has helped in his new position.

“I have a lot of connections with all of these kids,” Strachota says, “the big thing to me is just being seen. Our plan is between the three of us, we’re a three man team.”

Officials with the school board expressed appreciation that Beaver Dam has expanded its liaison officer program when many schools are scaling theirs back.