Unit 40 aims to make schools more safe and secure with new program

Feb. 16—EFFINGHAM — Effingham Unit 40 has some new faces dressed in red shirts and khakis roaming the halls of its buildings.

They are the new school security officers in the district's new Safety and Security Program.

Effingham Unit 40 is joining a growing number of districts in the state that are adopting measures to beef up security and is the first in the county to do so.

"We are going to go to a level of security in this district that no other school in the area has," said Superintendent Andrew Johnson during a recent school board meeting.

The additional security aims to assist the district's lone school resource officer, who covers six buildings spread throughout the city.

Retired police officer Kevin Mante is leading the program after being hired in December as its director. The position is a good fit for Mante, who started his own law enforcement training company 10 years ago that has morphed into a security consulting service. In his new role at Unit 40, Mante said he has a three-prong parallel approach to improving the district's security.

The first is hiring security staff. The SSOs, who are also retired police officers, are spread throughout the district, with one at the high school full time, one at the junior high full time, and the other floating between the other schools daily. They are being funded through the district's Tort Fund.

At the same time, he is making physical security assessments of each building, including looking at door locks, alarms and camera systems. He is looking at what each building currently has versus what the risk threat assessment deems is needed.

"And we have to find a balance as to what can we do with funding given with the buildings we're looking at. There's just a lot of things involved in that," he said.

Mante looks at both the building and its location, starting from the outside. He starts at a perimeter and looks at specific needs and requirements versus industry standards all the way to inside the building in what he call a "domino effect."

Mante said the focus is balancing security need with day-to-day operational requirements without making any of the schools look like a prison.

The third approach is educating school staff to be more aware of security concerns and reporting them, which he said will be huge in developing a safer environment.

"By doing that, we're basically getting more eyes and ears out there, looking at something and saying, 'you know that doesn't look right,'" he said.

Mante said a similar program has already been implemented in Charleston and Mattoon and some other school districts in the state.

"Basically, what we're doing is we're trying to look at what the other schools are doing and pick and choose what works best for this district," said Mante.

One question Mante said he gets asked a lot is if the SSOs carry weapons. The SSOs are armed in accordance with state statute that allows school security officers, as well as retired officers, to carry, he said. The district's policies were also changed to allow an employee of the district, i.e., security officer, to conceal carry while on district property.

Mante makes clear the SSOs are only supplementing the SRO's role and have no arrest power per se. The SSOs doing day-to-day tasks the SRO previously did frees up the SRO's time to focus on the law enforcement side.

"There is a large part of the law enforcement side that he just couldn't do because he was focusing on standing by for an open door here, getting the kids across the street from one school to another," said Mante.

Unit 40 SRO Cody Hartke said the SSOs will help him tremendously as their primary focus will be checking the buildings to ensure they are secure. That will allow him to educate students and handle disciplinary matters that require his intervention.

"My job is a little bit more in depth of building good relationships with the students to promote the police department. So, starting that at a young age is kind of one thing that I do. With these guys in place, I can do that and not worry as much about security," he said.

That includes talking to driver's ed students and young students about strangers and what not to do as well as bicycle safety.

However, Hartke said security is still at the forefront, as he also periodically checks buildings and doors to make sure they are secure.

"It allows me to do all those things that are in my job title a little bit easier because I'm not always trying to be at every place at once for security purposes," he said.

Hartke said as the staff learns the duties of each, the SSOs help serve as liaisons when he's not there.

"If I'm not there and the staff needs me, they can say something to one of the security guys and say, 'Hey. What do you think about this? Can you see if Cody can come by?' We've already had that," he said.

Looking ahead, Mante said more SSOs may be needed to cover the sprawling district.

"We're looking at a mix of full-time and part-time people based on the need of the individual schools," he said. "But we're also looking in the future to expand because there is some need for the extracurricular — ball games and some other things that are happening after school hours."

Hartke believes more SSOs are needed.

"Right now, we have three plus a director, but we have six or seven buildings that have kids in them," he said. "The way I see it, we're still short."

Hartke and Mante said they have received positive feedback from staff and the community.

"The feedback that I'm getting by staff, admin has been overwhelmingly supportive and the city police department too," said Mante. "They've been basically anything we can do to help you, which is great."

"Especially the way we're doing it. It's not a show of force. It is a very pleasant way of implementing additional security," noted Hartke.

Hartke believes the program is good and is only going to get better.

"I think you're probably going to start seeing this in multiple school districts," he said. "Because at the end of the day, all of us have the same thought: We want to just protect the kids and make sure that they can come to school and learn and not have to worry about something happening that's happened previously in our country."

Johnson said once the program is up and running, the district is more than willing to help other districts in the county in the future if needed.

"In the meantime, I do feel we desire as a district to collaborate with local law enforcement agencies as well as other school districts to build the most robust safety and security opportunities for all schools in our region," he said.

Hartke believes that by assessing the buildings and making them more secure, they can postpone something that may endanger students and staff from happening or keep whatever is happening outside the building longer. He noted no matter what school building in the city, multiple law enforcement officers are available to respond immediately.

"We hit that 2-4 minute mark, we're going to get law enforcement from all over here," he said.

"The way the world is, we have to be in this position. We're just trying to take proactive measures," he added.

Cathy Griffith can be reached at 618-510-9180 or cathy.griffith@effinghamdailynews.com.