Im about the same age. We got a student resource officer my sophomore year. That was after a football player KOed the Vice principal. BUT he knocked him out because he was punching an honor role student in the face. Over wearing a hat.

The SRO was not there to be a disciplinarian or to 'police children' as he called it. In his orientation meeting, he said he was there so 'if there are no football players to punch out an administrator gone berserk, students could come find him to do it.'

To his credit, he spent his time being an actual resource for students, like domestic issues at home, etc. He helped one of my friends on her path to becoming an emancipated minor, and helped another one get into a rehab program and vouched for him in court and kept him out of 'the system'

I graduated in '96. We had tshirts.

I graduated in 04 but went to a lot of different schools, and one of the bigger ones had metal detectors and sometimes a violent (edit: hahaha violent was supposed to be “cop”, what a wild autocorrect from my fat fingered misspelling!) but was also built using prison blueprints so it was very easy to secure that way (one main door and two side doors that stayed locked most of the time), but the smaller schools had nothing, as it would have cost a lot more to set up there and they didn’t have the budget (multiple entryways, many ground floor windows, etc.).

It also probably depends on the region.