Wiscasset High School sophomore Joshua Kramley has noticed a change this school year. He’s not hearing some students be rude to their teachers, like he was hearing last year.

Kramley, 15, of Edgecomb, brought up the difference when talking with, and about, Wiscasset Police Officer Perry Hatch, the new school resource officer for the town's three schools. Voters agreed to fund the job in June.

Sitting across the table from Hatch in the high school's conference room on Nov. 7, Kramley said, “Since he's been here I think it's a lot better. And he's cool. He's cool with the kids.”

Freshman Haley Davis, also taking part in Friday's interview, called Hatch by his first name. He goes by whatever a student prefers, Hatch said.

Davis has family members who work in public safety; she said she’s comfortable having a uniformed police officer in school.

“Whenever I'm in the hallways (he) and I kind of joke around,” Davis said. “So it's good. It's a happy thing. It isn't like, ‘Oh, God, I'm walking past the cop. Don't look.’

“I’ve never heard anyone say anything bad about you,” she told Hatch.

“Yeah, they keep that at home,” Hatch said, joking.

Kramley got used to having an officer in school when he attended school in Brunswick, and he had liked the idea of Wiscasset getting one; now that Hatch is in place, the school feels safer than it did before, Kramley said.

“And the school does seem a lot more positive and open (with) a resource officer,” he said. “It’s so much different from last year. It’s a good change.”

Hatch cited a change he has observed in the short time since the school year started.

“I sense the difference in that length of time. From the tension (of) ‘There’s a cop here. Why is he here? What’s he doing? Is he watching me?’ versus the attitude now.”

Now, Hatch said, students are talking with him in the hallways or wherever they see him, even after school.

“I get flagged down in the senior lounge and sit and talk for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, about anything and everything.”

Although the resource officer’s position is new for Wiscasset, it’s not a new experience for Wiscasset High School Principal Cheri Towle. The last school where she was principal, Mount View High School in Thorndike, had one.

“Having a school resource officer benefits all the students educationally and emotionally,” Towle said. “They're able to use (the officer) as a resource for questions they have.”

Recently, that has included students' questions about hunting permits, Towle said.

“It's great because Perry is an avid hunter, too, so he's able to make connections with kids that way, through those common interests. It starts to build those relationships so that when other more serious issues come up in their lives, they start to know that he's there for that as well.”

He and Towle said they have a good working relationship. Hatch has the right qualities for an officer working in the schools, Towle said.

“It's important to have a school resource officer who values education (and) who can connect well with kids. He's very easy-going, so he's very approachable for the kids.”

The school did an assembly on weapons, violence and school safety, including the fact that pocket knives, like those some students might have on them during hunting season, are not allowed in school.

Towle said she had Hatch explain to students that having a knife in school is a felony, a crime with higher consequences than some law-breaking.

“It's much better than me sharing it,” she said.

Hatch is helping with plans for the school’s substance abuse and alcohol awareness assembly.

While incidents involving drugs and Wiscasset High students have occurred in recent months, as they did last school year, he does not discuss individual students’ situations with other students, Hatch said.

Nor will he share with other students what questions a student has come to him with. Students need to know they can trust him, he said.

“That’s the whole concept ... They begin to realize that I’m not talking about anybody or anyone and if they have a question, they can ask away.”

That goes for questions about the law or other topics, he said.

“And I think kids are starting to see that I’m not naive enough to believe (they) are going to go home and not do something just because I told them, ‘Don’t do that.’ So my goal is to simply make them realize they have choices and options. And it’s their decision, but to think before they make those decisions.

“What good might happen? What bad might happen? And make an informed choice, because some of those choices will stick with you for life.”