Windham High School welcomes new School Resource Officer

By Masha Yurkevich

On Thursday, May 11, Windham High School students and staff said their goodbyes to School Resource Officer Seth Fournier, who had served in the position for the past 10 years and welcomed a new SRO, Windham Police Officer Lee Maher.

Windham Police Officer Lee Maher has
replaced Seth Fournier as the
School Resource Officer at Windham
High School. Maher has served for
more than a decade with the Windham
Police Department working in patrol
and other duties. Fournier was promoted
to Sergeant and will now work for the 
department at the Public Safety
Building in Windham. 
SUBMITTED PHOTO   

Fournier has been promoted to sergeant and will continue to serve the community at the Windham Police Department. He will be the first to tell you that serving as a SRO is no simple role and requires someone who is kind, patient, trustworthy, as well as always alert for whatever one may come into contact with every day so that students, staff, and parents are protected and can feel safe at school. Officer Maher has shown himself to be ready to undertake such a responsibility.

Maher has been with the Windham Police Department for about 11 years and has spent most of that time working in patrol, initially working nights, then evenings and eventually serving on the department’s day shift, where he has been for the past four years. He has also been a part of several different drug task force units during his tenure with the WPD.

“I am a certified drug recognition expert, field training officer, a member of the department’s motorcycle unit, and an Evidence and Property Management Officer,” said Maher. “I joined the Windham Police Department for several reasons, but my primary objective was to find a rewarding career in which I could become an integral part of the community I served. I believe I found that in Windham.”

Born in Massachusetts, Maher moved to Maine with his family as a child. He graduated from Lake Region High School and then earned a degree in criminal justice at Southern Maine Community College. He worked for three years at the Maine Correctional Center and then graduated from the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in 2012. He joined the Windham Police Department soon thereafter and in 2021, Maher was honored as the Windham Police Officer of the Year for 2021. He’s married and the father of a 3-year-old son and the couple also has a daughter on the way.

The SRO position is a complex and multi-faceted position within the Windham Police Department.

“I am tasked with ensuring the safety and security of the students and staff at the high school, along with bridging the gap between law enforcement and the community, educating students on law enforcement related topics, and mediating conflicts that may arise both on and off school grounds,” says Maher. “In this new position, I hope to be a valuable resource for students, parents, teachers, staff and administration. I also hope to gain the students’ trust and respect and become a positive role model in their early lives.”

He said that one big misconception that people have about the SRO position is that their main job consists of arresting students and breaking up fights. Their work, however, involves much more than just the physical safety of the staff and students, and it also involves being a teacher, counselor, and then law enforcement officer, much of their duties result in restorative conversations that help students navigate tough situations.

He also is in charge of the physical security of RSU 14 buildings and the students within them, emergency operations planning for the district, safety training for the district, education on various topics for students, and the day-to-day operations of the high school community.

While Maher anticipates that it will be an adjustment coming from patrol to the school, he is eager to start this new position. Maher says that he has always felt that the School Resource Officer position is crucial to the concept of community policing. It is about building positive relationships with the police from a young age to bridge the gap between the community and law enforcement.

“I hope to be a friendly, approachable outlet in whom students can confide with the various and ever-growing struggles of adolescence,” he says.

Maher applied for this position for several reasons. Primarily, he wanted to be more involved in the community in a positive way. As the School Resource Officer, he will have a more proactive role in the community and law enforcement.

Additionally, over the last several years as a Field Training Officer, which involves preparing and training new officers for their careers in law enforcement, he has grown to enjoy the mentorship role that position entails.

“I enjoyed sharing my knowledge and experience with new officers and watching them go on to succeed in their own law enforcement careers,” Maher said. “In applying for the SRO position, I hope to expand that mentorship role and become a positive role model for the students, as well as a dependable resource for the teachers and administration. I am eager to meet everyone, so please stop by and introduce yourself.” <