East Aurora School District 131 is hiring six retired police officers to serve as security monitors who will also conduct building safety studies to see how the district stands in the wake of the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, in late May.
Beginning in August, the new security monitors will rotate between East Aurora’s elementary schools. The district already has two school resource officers for the high school and one for the middle schools.
They will not only actively monitor building security but also see if people are complying with safety training and conduct vulnerability studies to see what improvements are needed, East Aurora School District Superintendent Jennifer Norrell said.
While the district has had an increased focus on security protocols since former Aurora police officer Kevin Jenkins began as a safety and security manager in 2019, the coronavirus pandemic halted progress, Norrell said.
In 2019, all staff were given ALICE training – short for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate. The program is used at hundreds of schools across the U.S. and prepares teachers in the event of an active shooter in a school building.
The COVID-19 pandemic then hit and students weren’t in classrooms for over a year, Norrell said, forcing the district to go back once students returned and make sure all staff members were trained and to make sure that they are actually executing security protocols each day.
The six new security officers will focus on securing the entrances and exits of the buildings at the beginning and end of each school day and will also perform routine patrols to ensure there are no security vulnerabilities, officials said.
“They may see that we need to do something completely different, and we are not ruling anything out,” Norrell said. “From reconfiguring our entrances regarding our physical building structure to changing staff or starting new training, we want to make sure we have a study done to see what is needed.”
After the first quarter, the new security monitors will report back to the board and begin to give recommendations on any changes that are needed.
“We have run drills at all of our schools, but we are now at the point to see if the training is still occurring and if the tenets are being upheld,” Norrell said. “This was just the next step in our safety and security plans, especially in light of everything that has recently occurred.”
The school board approved the new positions, each starting at a salary of $51,800, at its July 5 meeting. Interested candidates can apply on the district’s website.
mejones@chicagotribune.com
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