After a week of safety incidents at the high school and the tragedy of the MSU shooting in 2023, it’s understandable that staff, students and parents alike were looking for a more secure school. A safety team was hired, better locks on the doors were purchased and a policy prohibiting door propping was instated.
Still, the school was not safe enough.
In response, construction began.
A secure front door will be inoperation next school year, but until then, what can staff do to keep students safe? With over 1200 students in the crowded hallways, a lot can go under the radar.
So, the school took to hiring an additional safety member, Todd Arnold, making security at the school more efficient.
He was hired because of his experience in security and his connections with lead safety monitor, Ronshon Fisher, and other security personnel. His job, like those of the other safety members’ jobs, is quite similar: support students and keep the school safe. Amelia McNutt, another safety officer, will be supporting him as he gets used to ELHS.
“Since Arnold is new here, he’s trying to build relationships with the students first and build trust with them,” McNutt said. “He’s also trying to learn the building, meet the staff and meet [other] new people.”
Arnold has been involved in security for a long time, working in arms security as a second job and being the head of security at Holt High School for seven years prior.
“[Compared to the students at Holt], the students [here] are a lot better,” Arnold said. “They’re not in the hallways as much. Here they go to class and they [even] want to get to class.”
Safety is run differently from school to school, with officers racing to use the most updated methods in order to keep the school as secure as possible. Arnold realizes how much high school safety has changed from when he was graduating from Everett High School, complicating his job.
“When I went to high school, you didn’t imagine the things that [security teams] do now,”Arnold said. “We didn’t deal with vaping and a bunch of guns. It’s definitely different.”
It’s difficult work, especially with such changes occurring, but Arnold has always seen himself doing security. Even if he wasn’t in this line of work, Arnold still sees himself helping others.
“I’d probably be working in a hospital somewhere,” Arnold said. “I started off my career in the hospital and switched over to security. I used to be a surgical tech, I did that for a long time.”
A big piece of keeping the school safe is creating relationships with the students: connecting with them raises overall student morale. So far, Arnold has been successful in doing so.
“It’s mentoring,” Arnold said. “I’ve been through a lot of things, and I have a lot of experience, [so] I’m here to help the kids. I’m excited about them walking across the stage [at graduation].”
Arnold has been enjoying his current job so far. The introduction to a fresh school has allowed him to encounter many new situations and students, which is something he anticipates to handle as the year continues.
“It’s an exciting job, there’s something new every day,” Arnold said.
Most people don’t give security a second thought as plans for after high school. They forget the privilege that many staff at our school work hard to give us: the ability to learn in peace and comfort. Todd Arnold recognized that privilege and skill needed to do so from the very beginning.
And so, he applied it.
“When I was in high school, I was a bad kid,” Arnold said. “There was one security officer at the school who took me under his wing and looked out for me. And I wanted to do the same thing.”
