After 3 directors of campus security in 2 years, OPRF High School Supt. Greg Johnson acknowledges the school needs some stability.
“We have had some challenges recently certainly with keeping our director position staffed,” Johnson said.
A look at the departures illustrates the problem:
- Both the director and the assistant director of campus safety positions are open.
- Traccye Love, who assumed the director position in January, left in April.
- Eddie Stokes, the former assistant director, resigned from his position in May.
- Cherylynn Jones-McLeod resigned from the director position in June 2023.
- Cindy Guerra filled the director role for less than five months before resigning in November 2023.
Three positions are now open, including for director and the assistant.
Love, Jones-McLeod and Guerra all have said they left for “personal reasons.” Neither Stokes nor Love could be reached for comment.
However, Johnson said, Love was highly respected among the campus security staff.
“Traccye [Love], who just left the position, was widely respected and liked,” Johnson said. “[She] was really doing quite a bit, I think, to help folks feel comfortable and welcomed and have a sense of belonging in the safety and security role.”
There are 42 full and part-time team members who are overseen by the campus safety supervisor during the afternoons and evenings, and by the assistant director of campus safety during the regular school day. This is according to David Narain, assistant principal of operations, who presented a campus security procedures update to the board during the June committee of a whole meeting.
The problem, Johnson explained, is that the directorship can be a challenging role.
“It is a position that is fairly public. It is a position that has a lot of eyes on it and with that comes a lot of challenges, a lot of pressure. I think people feel that in the position.”
Johnson added that the position is a “blend of two positions,” because it requires someone who not only has a strong safety experience but also someone who can navigate working with school districts and school boards.
“We have a good staff of security folks,” Johnson said. “This building has a lot of challenges…but we have a good crew, and they do good work.”
But the district needs to find someone who can help us to have an eye and appreciation for both worlds is really what we are going for,” Johnson said.
Now that the district is looking for a director as well as an assistant director, they can focus on addressing those needs collectively.
“This allows us to take a look at the breadth of needs that we have for the safety and security roles and recognize that we don’t necessarily have to find all of these qualities and areas of expertise in one person but that we can collectively get them in the two people we hire.”
Johnson said he is confident the district will find the right people for the job.
Challenges at OPRF
The openings come as OPRF struggled with lockdowns, fights and other security threats this year, although Narain said at an early June committee of the whole meeting that there were “there were really no major incidents.”
The first “soft lockdown” was issued in December, and the second “secure and teach” lockdown on Feb. 14 after a student claimed to have a gun and made threats via Snapchat to shoot inside the building. A “secure and teach” lockdown is called when a “threat is outside the building or an investigation is needed in the building.” During a “secure and teach” teachers secure students in a classroom and continue to teach as usual, ignoring passing periods until the lockdown is lifted.
Reports also showed that 67 reports of “inappropriate physical contact (non-sexual),” occurred, a decrease from 82 the year before. The district also reported the same number of “actual fights” for both 2024 and 2023, with 10 fights reported.
“As you know, we had two campus safety directors, we also had two ‘secure and teach’ but we learned, and we grew from those. Overall, we would say it was a good year,” Narain told the board.
He recommended that all protocols be reviewed with staff and students at the beginning of each semester, coordinating and assigning staff to assist with hallway monitoring and classroom teachers, and to communicate with PE teachers through radios to help concerns about exposure in PE spaces.
It is not clear how his recommendations matched those made by leaders in the security department.
Narain also recommended the high school adopt a partnership with “I Love U Guys,” a foundation dedicated to providing crisis response and post-crisis reunification to more than 50,000 districts, schools, agencies, and other organizations around the world.
This would allow the high school to be “aligned” with feeder schools, said Narain, adding it would be consistent with language and training.
ALICE, Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evacuate, training was also recommended. ALICE training would provide the district with tools to support, train, and perform school safety drills and exercises in the event of an active shooter.
“That is something that is a high recommendation from us to prepare our faculty and make them feel safer in the event of a major school incident,” he said.
He also suggested that the district focus on personnel recommendations, such as de-escalation and conflict resolution training, assigning leaders to each floor and route all classroom concerns through them, and possibly swap the shifts the director and assistant work.
Johnson said the district is in the hiring process, and he hopes the director position will be filled by the end of the month.
He said he is confident the district will find the right people for the job.
