B-A security officers get positive reviews
BELLWOOD — The Bellwood-Antis School Board’s decision to hire school security officers is getting positive reviews.
In April, board members hired Jeffrey Hanna, a retired state police trooper, to serve as a security officer at the beginning of the current school year. In June, board members hired Timothy Mercer, a retired state police trooper and Logan Township police chief, to also serve as a security officer.
The men work every other week.
“They have been fantastic. I’ve never worked at a school that had a security officer. I thought what they would do would be limited. We have quality, quality people. Tim and Jeff are amazing,” said Superintendent Thomas McInroy.
McInroy said Mercer and Hanna have developed a great relationship with the students and parents.
“The relationship with law enforcement is paramount to the safety of all of us. We’ve received comments on how much parents appreciate the security guys greeting the kids when they come in. They have really taken this to the next level,” McInroy said.
“Our mission is to keep students, visitors and staff safe from internal and external threats and make the schools as safe as possible without losing the friendly touch,” Mercer said.
The security officers went to work meeting the students at the beginning of the school year.
“Our goal was to meet every student in the district. We were able to accomplish this. This is a new way of doing business at Bellwood-Antis. We want kids to be comfortable with us carrying a gun,” Mercer said. “We challenged the middle school and high school students to be part of our security team. We can’t do it all ourselves. We are not disciplinarians here; we are protectors. This allows our relationship with students to be positive with us. I am proud of the rapport we have developed with the students at Bellwood-Antis.”
The security office was recently moved to just inside the high school’s main entrance.
“With technology advances, we moved our office to the main entrance. The greeters are in a safe zone. Most people who come in don’t need to be here. We have reduced the number of people coming into the building,” Mercer said.
The biggest change is the use of EasyLobby Secure Visitor Management software, Mercer said.
HID Global’s program allows organizations to automate the entire process of registering a visitor, printing a badge and capturing detailed information in seconds by simply scanning an ID (such as a driver’s license, business card or passport), according to its website.
“We had a Halloween party and scanned 140 people in 45 minutes. It was a smooth process, and we got lots of compliments on it,” Hanna said.
Installation of the system has helped improve safety for both students and visitors.
“The greeters are now part of the emergency system. Our greeters have ramped up their game. They take the load off of the staff. They are part of our staff. They look at cameras and contact us. They are eyes and ears for us. We tell them they are the face of the Bellwood-Antis School District. They leave people with a positive or negative impression of the school,” Mercer said.
Both Mercer and Hanna are Bellwood-Antis graduates.
“We deeply care about Bellwood-Antis and want to do everything we can to protect the students,” Mercer said.
Mirror Staff Writer Walt Frank is at 946-7467.
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