The call him "Coach," including the teens he doesn't coach in lacrosse.
Or they call him "Shrek," a tag that stuck from a couple of years back, when, as a big and bald detective clad in green, a colleague noted a resemblance to the movie character. And he's good with being called by his full name, Anthony Howard Mills.
Most important to Cpl. Tony Mills, 43, is that the students at Anne Arundel County's Meade High School call him, whether they shout greetings as he rolls down the hall on his scooter, ask to slip into his office for advice or pull him aside about a problem. He also tells responding officers to call him when trouble erupts involving a Meade student.
"I think that I give the kids the time that sometimes they don't get at home," Mills says.
He's a uniformed officer, an ear to a 2,300-student community, a partner in the operation of a diverse school on the Fort Meade Army base, a mediator among teens, an advocate for youths and an officer who arrests them.
As a school resource officer, he helps teens navigate the gray areas, but he also draws a bright line.
In July, Mills will hear his name called for another reason: He will be honored by the national School Safety Advocacy Council for his efforts to address bullying, for his professionalism and for related roles, according to Curt Lavarello, the council's executive director.
The School Resource Unit, which includes officers in 20 middle and high schools, will see its operation hailed as a model for other agencies. The awards will bring the unit two of the 15 SSAC honors this year, on top of one last year from the National Association of School Resource Officers.
"We set out to be the best in the country," said Lt. J.D. Batten Jr., who commands the unit, crediting his officers' work and departmental support. Their approach involves parents, schools' staffs and other services, and helps information flow.
A conference on cyberbullying led Mills to go with this system for complaints: "We print everything out right here in front of the parents," Mills said. He speaks to all involved and their parents, tells them that threatening a person on school grounds is illegal, seeks the root of the dispute and works on getting it resolved or keeping the students apart. He now teaches other police this method.
The job includes keeping up with students' cyber-universe and taking the initiative. The unit is helping write the school system's anti-gang curriculum that will be rolled out this fall. After the gang-related killing of a 14-year-old last year in Crofton, its members asked state legislators for a law — passed this spring — allowing police and schools to share information about troubled youths and brewing problems.
Since 2007, when the unit was centralized, school assaults and fights are down. The officers become embedded in school life, says Batten. Mills is Meade's lacrosse coach (this year, the team won its first playoff game in 24 years), engages fans at school basketball games in halftime fun and encourages students to talk privately about personal issues.
Some talk about violence at home, information that Mills funnels to other officers to investigate, and problems in the community, which Mills shares with officers who work in those neighborhoods.
His office is a jumble of Shrek characters, police material and lacrosse gloves. It also holds a framed newspaper article about two youths, one of whom he knew well, who died in car wreck.
"A lot of kids come and talk to me about college," he said. He opened his wallet for a teen, an International Baccalaureate student who plays lacrosse, to visit a Division I college in Pennsylvania. "If we work hard enough, he'll probably go to college for free."
For a student who was in danger of not graduating because he did not finish a final, Mills asked administrators to allow him to complete the test, on which he got a B, and was able to graduate, said Daryl Kennedy, Meade's principal.
"The kids know that he cares," Kennedy said.
Mills' first round as a school resource officer was from 2000 to 2003 at Meade Middle School. A few years as a detective made him realize that he missed trying to improve teens' lives. In 2008, Batten filled Kennedy's request for a caring officer who could hold his own at the school.
One night this year, when a Meade student was a suspect in a stabbing, other students urged investigating officers to rouse Mills. He then met police at the youth's home.
"I wanted to make it easier. As soon as I walked in, he said, 'Hey, Corporal Mills,' and he put his head down," Mills recalled.
Students can be sent to him by school officials for causing trouble. Some respond to Mills, some don't. Some former students in locked juvenile facilities stay in touch with him, including one who wrote a letter saying "the little you done for me was still more than what my father did for me," wishing he'd talked more with Mills and another officer, and begging to move in with Mills if released.
"There is a fundamental, formal accountability that he brings. He is the counselor. He is the guide. He is the mentor. But there is a line," Batten said. "If you went to any other school in the county, you would hear similar stories."
andrea.siegel@baltsun.com