High Five Fridays have become an exciting beginning to the last day of each week
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
For years (during the schoolyear) one of the most enthusiastically anticipated end-of-week interactions between schoolkids and deputies has been HIGH FIVE FRIDAYS (H5F), a Friday morning period when deputies meet and greet elementary school students arriving at school to begin the day. There at the front door of the school – and it’s a different school each week – deputies with the Richland County Sheriff’s Department (RCSD) greet students getting off the school-bus or climbing out of parents’ cars with a kind word, a big smile, a high five, a fist bump, or a hug.
“Sounds simple, but it’s often the highlight of the students’ week, and it’s always a bright spot in our own,” said School Resource Officer (SRO) and retired Senior Captain John Ewing who’s been involved in H5Fs since at least 2018 when H5Fs began. “It enables kids to see police officers in a different light – as a sincere friend who cares about them and their well-being. It’s a great way to start any Friday morning for them and for us.”
According to Ewing, H5Fs are not simply “high fives,” but oftentimes music, dancing, and “always a lot of hugs.” Greeting and interacting with kids, whose backgrounds are often unknown “affirms them and reminds them of their value,” says Ewing. “It builds esteem in them, trust in us, and it lets them know they’re special. And they are: Each and every one of them.”
Ewing adds: “I’ve never seen a frown during a H5F. But there have been times, maybe later in the day, when a kid will be crying, we don’t know why or for what reason, but they’ll be comfortable sharing their unhappiness with us [because of the trust earned through something as simple as H5F], and usually we can help or offer some perspective to help them.”
Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott who instituted H5Fs throughout the school year seven years ago, said, “High Five Fridays encourage students to see us as friends who truly care, which we are.”
In the beginning, RCSD reached out to schools to arrange and schedule H5Fs. Today schools are eagerly calling on RCSD’s SROs to set-up forthcoming H5Fs. “School adminstrators recognize the benefit of High Five Fridays,” said Lott.
Master Deputy Rachel Hodge, an SRO at Ballentine Elementary School, says parents who are also law-enforcement officers, but from other agencies, recognize the benefits of H5Fs for their own children and others, and so they (the law enforcement parents) also want to participate in the Friday morning fun; and they often do at Hodge’s school. “I personally see so much love generated through High Five Fridays,” said Hodge. “We may all be wearing different uniforms, but we all have the same goal: To keep our babies safe.”
H5Fs began as the brainchild of Sheriff Lott and local talk-radio personality Keven Cohen.
“Keven had the idea,” said Lott. “I thought it was great, so we did it.”
Cohen said: “Sheriff Lott tries to give me too much credit for this. Yes, it was my idea, but he did all the work to make it happen.”
According to Cohen: “I heard about a story somewhere in the northeastern United States where police would go out to schools to greet kids in the morning one day a week. Well, a specific school district decided this was a bad idea because they saw law enforcement as a threat to young people instead of being an asset to the community.”
Cohen forwarded the story to Lott and suggested to the Sheriff “that he implement this very program in Richland County under the name of ‘High Five Friday.’”
Lott loved the idea and told Cohen he would make it happen. That he did, and H5Fs have since become a weekly schoolyear tradition for both RCSD and Richland County elementary schools.
“Little did either of us know that this would be something that would take off and other agencies would now want to imitate,” said Cohen. “I’ve had a number of deputies tell me they enjoy this as much or more than the kids do.”
Cohen added: “I love High Five Fridays because it humanizes our deputies. It allows the younger children to build a bond at an early age with law enforcement and most importantly, to recognize that police officers are the good guys and want to always be there to help young people in need. It’s a great way to connect young people with the law enforcement community.”
Plus, it’s “a great way to start any morning,” said Ewing.
– Pictured are students with RCSD deputies and law enforcement officers from other agencies at Ballentine Elementary School.
