Rose basketball highlights
FRI.| 4-12-24 | ENTERTAINMENT
Issue 1
September 27th, 2019
Officer Groccia reaches retirement
THURS. | 02-10-22 | NEWS
On Wednesday, Jan. 19, Rose’s School Resource Officer (SRO) Bruce Groccia celebrated his last day before retirement. He was given a surprise goodbye party to honor his six years as an SRO.
As an SRO, Groccia was responsible for making sure students at Rose stayed out of trouble. He worked to prevent and break up fights as well as other student conflicts. For six years, his job was to keep the Rose environment safe for students and staff.
“I make sure students don’t get in trouble and make good decisions,” Groccia said. “Everybody is going to mess up; everyone’s going to make a bad decision somewhere; [I] just have to guide them along the way.”
Over his career as an SRO, Groccia has developed many relationships with members of the Rose community. As he steps away, he says it will be the thing he will miss the most.
“The relationships built with the kids, staff and parents [are] the best thing ever,” Groccia said. “I’ll miss everybody, [and] waking up and knowing you can’t come back here to the kids… it’s definitely going to be the hardest part.
As Groccia enters retirement, he will be able to come back and do part-time work starting in March. At a certain point in a police officer’s career, they start to lose money in retirement if
Photo by Mary-Bennett Billings
they stay in the force longer. Groccia has hit this point in his career, but still wants to make an impact and see his students at Rose. He is going to do reserve work through the police department where he will get a certain amount of hours a year to work.
“There are only so many hours a year they let you [do reserve] work but I can work when I want, and they already told me I can come and work at the school whenever I want,” Groccia said. “I told them, I will retire, but let me come back as a reserve so I still get to see [the students] and do what I love to do; it just won’t be a full-time thing.”
Before coming to work at Rose, Groccia had many jobs through the police department and the military. Groccia started his career with eight years in the Marine Corps, where he got to travel the world through his deployments.
“There were two things I knew I wanted to do growing up: I knew I was going to the Marines and I knew at some point I was going to get out and become a cop,” Groccia said. “Originally, I thought I was going to be in the Marines for 20 years, but after eight years I knew it was time to become a cop.”
Through the Police Department, Groccia was given multiple assignments that lead to him being an SRO. He worked in patrol, street level narcotics, emergency response team (SWAT), drug task force, K-9 handler, special victims unit as a detective and ended with being an SRO. He was first an SRO at C.M. Eppes Middle School for three years.
“Being an SRO was my best assignment ever,” Groccia said.
In his retirement, Officer Groccia hopes to take up new hobbies such as fishing and grilling. Although he has retired, Groccia will continue to be a present face at Rose as he will come back while doing reserve work for the police department.
