Becoming a Cop to Protect 'My Kids'

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NOT MANY SUPERINTENDENTS willingly expand their job responsibilities to include becoming a full-fledged police officer. But then Julie Kraemer, superintendent in Hutsonville, Ill. (population 500), is not like many educators.

Today, at age 51, she is able to lift half of her body weight and complete the police academy training and physical requirements. She credits her condition to a Cross-Fit training regimen that builds strength, endurance and flexibility.

The same qualities make her an effective leader of the 320-student Hutsonville schools, located 230 miles south of Chicago.

Kraemer counts herself lucky to be leading the district from which she graduated three decades earlier. As a homegrown leader in a small, rural district, Kraemer has worn multiple hats over the past 15 years, often simultaneously. She has worked as a business teacher, athletic director, dean, principal and assistant superintendent. Her expertise covers curriculum, finances, facilities, student wellness and safety. Before joining the Hutsonville system, she was part of the seven-member school board.

In 2012, her first year as superintendent, the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut proved a game changer for her. In the aftermath, she supervised facility improvements and established new protocols for security. But the district’s beleaguered budget fell far short of accommodating a full-time school resource officer.

Kraemer kept searching for answers. She believed students were vulnerable to an armed intruder because first responders need a half-hour to reach the school site.

“I want to be able to protect ‘my kids’ with something other than a stapler if the need arises,” Kraemer says.

Like most school leaders, she always had thought “it couldn’t happen here.” Then, in November 2017, a high school student in nearby Mattoon, Ill., shot a student in the cafeteria before a teacher disarmed him. It cemented her decision to become certified as a school resource officer.

That notion popped into Kraemer’s head while attending a school safety workshop led by Steve Webb, superintendent in Goreville, Ill. She had noticed Webb included the abbreviation “SRO” (which stands for school resource officer) after his name on the presentation materials.

Before the day was out, she had texted Hutsonville’s police chief to solicit his reaction to the idea of her becoming an SRO. He was intrigued by the prospect. Both viewed it as a novel solution to a vulnerable situation.

The nine months of training demanded endurance, says Kraemer. Her schedule burst at the seams with Saturdays requiring four hours of travel to and from the police academy. She persisted, knowing it would benefit her students and staff.
Kraemer graduated from the police academy in September 2018 as a part-time police officer. Then Time magazine called her for an interview.

“I’m not a person who likes to be in the spotlight,” Kraemer admits, but her school board president urged her to tell her story. And then she experienced her 15 minutes of nationwide fame. The publicity triggered widespread news media attention and calls from Illinois superintendents who wanted further details.

The reception from parents and students has been largely positive, she says.

Jeff Patchett, superintendent in Oblong, a nearby community, says he admires his colleague’s commitment. “Julie is student-centered, unselfish and a servant leader,” Patchett says. “She knows her mission, who she is and what she’s there for. She puts the interest of others ahead of her own.”

That she volunteered to become a police officer is one example of her unselfishness, he says.