Perry Hatch grew up poor in the Belfast area, with a mother who preached the value of an education.

When the Eagle Scout and U.S. Army veteran worked as a Maine State Trooper, and would visit his daughter’s school while in uniform, the students didn’t see him as a police officer. They saw him as their schoolmate’s dad.

Now Hatch, who has been working full-time as a Wiscasset police officer, has moved into a job designed to help Wiscasset schools be safe places to learn.

As the Wiscasset Police Department’s school resource officer, Hatch said he will work with the town’s school committee, teachers, students, principals and the superintendent of schools to meet that goal.

“We all have to work together or it’s not going to work,” he told the Wiscasset School Committee on July 24. The job will also have him serving as mentor and as teacher, on topics like search and seizure laws and domestic violence.

Voters in June agreed to fund the position that Police Chief Troy Cline sought after Wiscasset High School had an uptick in student substance abuse. But he’s really wanted the department to have a school resource officer since he came to town three years ago; and now that the job exists, Hatch is the right person for it, Cline told the committee.

Because it’s a position within the police department, Cline said he’s Hatch’s direct supervisor and the one for the committee to come to if any issues arise. He and the committee discussed a memo of understanding they’re working on; among other points, it will address what Hatch will be wearing in the town’s three schools. Cline said he plans for Hatch to be in uniform most of the time. Hatch might wear a polo shirt and khakis on Fridays, Cline said when Interim Superintendent of Schools Lyford Beverage asked for some middle ground.

“Sometimes, look like a person instead of a cop,” Beverage said.

He and Hatch agreed that building trust with students will be an important part of Hatch’s job.

In an interview, Hatch said he is looking forward to meeting the schools’ students and working with them, the staffs and the community, “to get us all going in the same direction...so that we realize that we’re all in this together and that none of us have the one answer,” he said. “It’s going to take all of us.”

Talking consolidation

So far, to Wiscasset School Committee Chairman Steve Smith, Wiscasset Middle School is looking like the school to close.

“There’s no perfect solution to it, whether it’s the primary school or the middle school. They both need things to happen for that to work,” Smith said. But based on what he learned on the committee’s recent tours of those schools and Wiscasset High School, he said, “I myself am leaning toward closing the middle school.”

One option to consider would be to transfer classes from one school into the other schools, without formally closing the school that’s emptied of students, member Eugene Stover said during the meeting and in an interview July 25. That could still save the town money while avoiding much of the state’s red tape that comes with a closure, he said.

Residents will get to weigh in on consolidation at a meeting the committee plans to hold within a few weeks. Ahead of that meeting, the school department will release a memo with each building’s pluses and minuses, Smith said at the committee’s July 24 meeting.

No date was set for the memo’s release or for the meeting on consolidation.