What’s it like having security in school?

42 comments

1. I don’t know, I never did.

2. It’s not really something big it’s usually just some random police officer that patrols outside the area or sometimes inside. I know some students that personally know the officers and just chat in the hallways!

3. School Resource Officers are trained to work with school staff and students. They are part of the community, and most of the kids are familiar with them and vice versa.

4. It’s like living in a heckin The Wire episode fellow redditor! Big heckin dystopian Blade Runner vibes fr fr! /s

   But really, I didn’t have one till 8th grade. It’s like one pudgy security guard you see a handful of times per year and nobody takes him seriously. Like mall-cop tier.

5. What do you mean? Like a resource officer?

   If so, they’re fine. Our resource officer was a dude named Mark, he was pretty cool guy (and he carried a s&w, so double cool points).

6. It was fine for the most part. Having people there to break up fights and stuff in high school made sense. Especially since I went to a pretty big one. Some kids were even “friends” with the cops on campus.

   It only got kinda unnerving when they upped the number and added metal detectors. This was in the suburbs too, it felt very out of place.

7. Fine I guess. Didn’t have any till highschool(I was in 8th grade and only a few towns over when sandy hook happened) but when my younger sister was in elementary school they started having a security guard. Our hs “resource officer” as they call it didn’t really do much most of the time. It was well known that’s where they put the most junior police officers.

   When I had to drop something off for my sister years after being out of highschool they no longer would just unlock the doors for someone who hit the buzzer. A security guard sat in a booth in the “airlock” that had one of those drive thru teller bins. Left the stuff in the bin and it hopefully made its way to the student.

   All of my former schools (kindergarten, elementary, middle, and high) operate completely differently now then when I was in school. Makes sense I guess but idk how effective it actually is.

8. I wouldn’t know. I graduated from high school in 2001.

9. Like nothing. Just a cop or the resource officer walking around the hallways

10. It feels a lot safer. We have security outside and it’s closed campus. During a lockdown it isn’t as scary because we all know that it’s hard to get to any classrooms.

11. If by security you mean metal detectors, that’s not really common and only pops in areas with high rates of gang violence, etc.

    We did have two guys who were labeled as security, but their job really only involved rule enforcement (like parking) and they otherwise just monitored the school, they also managed emergency response like fires. But they didn’t carry any weapons or search kids and they certainly wouldn’t be one to take down anybody. It was basically the same job as the folks who used to watch us at recess back in the day.

    We did have two resource officers assigned to the school, however they are not at the school for security purposes, they’re for community outreach.

12. It’s nothing at all, i was more worried about a teacher or the principal seeing me wandering the halls. The security was all friendly and I got to know them throughout the years

13. Totally normal if you’ve always had it. We had a handful of hall monitor/security guards starting in high school. They walked around and kept a good rapport with most students. When they were needed, they did their job. I’m not sure how else to answer this.

14. There was a cop at my school.. motherfucker confiscated my Zippo once

    (I was click clacking it in my pocket and dude walked up behind me and just said “give it to me”.. I was impressed by his hearing.)

    But it wasn’t a weird feeling that he was there.. it’s fine.

    Basically, imagine yourself being at school.. Now imagine a cop who has an office there.. that’s what it’s like

15. Couldn’t say. My schools didn’t have any until college and college security was just basically there to keep kids from getting in trouble with town police.

    My kid’s school has no security either.

16. Never had them

17. just like a door that locked & a system for parents or other guests to check in at the office if they were coming by during school hours. not really that exciting.

18. We had security guards but I wouldn’t call them guards. It’s not like they were law enforcement or had guns. I can’t tell you what they did other than make sure kids didn’t leave the school when they weren’t supposed to.

19. We had one resource officer on a giant campus of like 3000 students. It wasn’t anything you even thought about. He used to hand out jolly ranchers.

20. Way less common than you want to think.

21. Couldn’t tell you.

22. No idea. Not something that my school had.

23. Officer Dan. He drove around parking lot in a little golf cart. Had a walrus mustache.

    A real asshole when you were trying to sneak out and skip school.

    After graduation I went up there with a friend, smoked on the 50 yard line. Ran into him, he bummed a cigarette from us. Nice guy once he was no longer responsible for us!

    Anyway. It’s just like a security guard anywhere at any building. They’re not really doing anything unless there’s a problem. And even then, they’re usually some older semi-retired guy who moves slow.

24. They were mostly useless, there was plenty of drugs and weapons in the building despite their presence

25. I had a resource officer at 3 of my schools growing up. They all got along with the students and made an effort to make us feel safer. It’s not really as “exciting” as it sounds.

26. We have like an over blown mall cop at high school and that’s it.

27. We had a cop in high school but I suspect he was mostly there to show cops are the good guys.

    We had a civics class where he introduced himself – he said he was secretly a whore who will give you a dollar if you just walked up to him and started a conversation. We had a big campus so I never got my chance to collect.

28. Had them in every school I went to as far as I can remember back. Police officers for the school district, not ho-hum mall security guards.

    Nobody cared, they just stood by the front door or walked around fully kitted and armed. They had a security office with cameras at the front near the admin offices that I caught a glimpse into once. There was like 3 dudes in there with multiple screens and stuff, maybe they were switching duty or angering.

    We had a couple fights but they were always handled by APs or some of the coaches, I never saw the officers get involved. Did get to watch an AP lay out a chick who was wailing on another one that was downed. Highlight of Jr year lol. Nobody wanted to get into a fight cuz everyone knew Mr. P would deck you, and he was huge, like 6’2” 260lbs of pure muscle.

29. We had a school resource officer. He was pretty cool; did a lot of drug education and doubled as a therapist sometimes.

30. we have it in every corner

31. Wasn’t a thing for me growing up, I graduated from high school in 2001 and I think they hired a few “resource officers” my senior year of high school in the wake of Columbine (which was in 2000, a lot of “weird”/”alt”/”goth” etc. students were profiled by the administration but that’s a separate discussion).

    Could not stand being around cops all day if I was a teenager now, I think I’d beg my parents to put me in private school. They’re useless for everything except slapping criminal charges on teenage students for minor infractions.

32. As a child of the 80s/90s? I was generally aware that there was a fat dude sitting in a chair somewhere wearing a police uniform. I think he gave a speech to the class at some point, possibly, but if he did I wasn’t paying attention.

    As an adult who sometimes goes to into schools for tutoring and teaching an occasional class? Holy balls. I can truthfully say that the security at jails is lighter than at some schools these days.

    I had an easier time getting my harmless little science experiments approved to go into a damn federal prison than I did getting them approved to go into a high school.

33. Define “security.” My elementary school (back in the ’90s) had a security guard that sat at a desk at the front of the school. Nice guy, friendly, kept an eye on things, no lethal weapons that I recall. If you mean metal detectors, I never went to one of those schools.

34. The resource officers (at the few schools I went to that even had them, most didn’t) we’re very chill with students for the most part. The only people who didn’t like them where the trouble makers of the school, everyone else didn’t even notice them.

35. It was three people that wandered around breaking up fights and stopping people from leaving campus during lunch. Barely noticeable.

36. No clue, none of the schools I attended had security.

37. I think we had two resource officers? They mostly just wandered the halls and were generally a pretty neutral presence. They stopped a car break in once (which inadvertently caused schoolwide chaos and fear but that was the front office’s fault and not the officers)

38. Resource officers didn’t really do much but break up fights and goof around with students. they were nice.

39. I had security in middle and high school. They were pretty lenient.

40. The SRO / newby police officer assigned to the school recently saved our asses. An imbecile across the street burst into a church office with a gun threatening his son’s life. Son was at our school. He took off running across the street presumably to kill his son or others.

    Lucky for us the church’s pastor phones 911. 911 phones the school which sent us into automatic lockdown. The SRO rushed outside b4 the receptionist hit the auto button to close and lock the front doors. The SRO risked his life by blocking the front doors.

    Long story short – the case / gunman will never make it to trial. Gunman down and school safe.

    You would be surprised as to how many “lockdowns” are enacted across the states. A lockdown occurs whenever an armed person is in the vicinity of a school. My last lockdown occurred when an armed jackass robbed a bank within a block of the school and ran off.

    So far I’ve been in 4 lockdowns. Thankfully none of them were for an armed person actually within the school.

    Security is not always to protect the students from a shooter inside the school. In my school, there is a difference between the intercom warning of “the school is now in lockdown” and “lockdown, active shooter”. I hope and pray that no more schools every have to hear the latter.

41. I dunno. We never had that. Neither do my kids. That’s something I’ve only ever seen on TV, usually when trying to establish an “inner city” setting

42. None of the schools I attended had any sort of security. I was in high school when the Heath High School, Pearl High School, and Columbine High School shootings happened, and nothing changed security-wise in the aftermaths. Even now, I’m not sure if this has changed.