BALTIMORE (AP) — A Baltimore County elementary school has organized a mentoring program that pairs a dozen students with officers from the Essex precinct.

Wendy Adey, a fifth-grade teacher at Chase Elementary who helped organize the program, tells The Baltimore Sun that a lot of kids have negative perceptions of the police and this program has changed some of those perceptions dramatically.

The officers rotate the days, according to their shift assignments, but usually spend one lunch hour every other week with the child they are mentoring.

Officer Christina Bauer says she was initially skeptical about the program but now says the students are happy to see the officers, and it has changed the officers’ view as well

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