Security personnel to patrol SRSS halls

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This article was published 06/12/2015 (3772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A security guard will soon become an additional set of eyes patrolling the hallways of Steinbach’s largest school.

The Hanover School Division has granted a request of the Steinbach Regional Secondary School to pay for an external security company to be on-site for two time periods—10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. on each school day.

It’s a precaution the division feels should be taken for a school as vast as the SRSS.

“It’s a large school, there’s over 1,700 students,” said HSD superintendent Randy Dueck. We’re “being responsive to the needs of a school of that size and a student body of that size.”

The school requested the two time slots, during the lunch hour and after-hours when the school is open for extracurricular activities, as those were the instances when most people are moving about.

A timeline was not offered for when the one security guard will begin roaming the school grounds. Dueck said it will happen as soon as arrangements, like the hiring of a security firm, are made.

The division is budgeting under $10,000 for this service for the remainder of the school year.

Dueck said it was misleading to suggest only this lone individual is providing peace of mind to students and staff.

“There is a whole plan of security, as there’s always been,” Dueck said in an interview. “There will be teachers that are busy supervising, EAs that are supervising, administration that will be supervising. This is in addition to all of the other supervision that is happening.”

The SRSS has made security a priority of late as the student body, now including Grade 9, has ballooned with the expansion of its campus in fall 2014. In January, each student began wearing identification cards.

Various other Manitoba schools, mainly in Winnipeg, also have security personnel on-site, whether it is security guards, RCMP or Winnipeg Police members.