New Bit of School Security: Parent Patrols

It’s 8:15 a.m. at Morningside High School and teen-agers with book bags slung over their shoulders are streaming past the sentry at the front gate. The warning bell for the first class of the day is minutes away.

“Good morning, young lady,” the man known to many as “Super Dad” calls out to one girl. She immediately breaks out a smile. Then the Rev. Charles E. Frazier delivers his real message: “If you hurry, you can beat the tardy bell.”

Frazier, a minister at Victory in Christ Ministries in Inglewood, is stationed at the main entrance to Morningside every morning urging students, one of whom is his son, to get to class. He likens himself to a shepherd, rounding up students who are used to hiding out in the wide-open spaces of Morningside’s 50 acres.

“Get to class,” he said to a tall boy wearing a baseball cap.

“Why aren’t you in class?” he asked a boy and a girl telling jokes by the library.

“You’re not ditching class?” he asked a student wandering the central quad without a pass.

One of seven members of the new Parent Aid Corps at Morningside High, Frazier is paid $6.50 an hour to patrol the sprawling campus searching out violations of school rules. Six other parents, all carrying walkie-talkies and wearing denim aprons emblazoned with the letters P-A-C, are stationed at nearby Monroe Junior High School.

The fledgling program, approved by the school board in January, is part of a wider effort by the Inglewood Unified School District to get parents more involved at their students’ schools. But unlike programs that use parent volunteers to perform clerical duties, chaperon school dances or accompany students on field trips, the patrol program is aimed at better securing the schools.

Members of the patrol program said they met some resistance from wary teachers and students at the two campuses when the program began. However, that opposition is declining, they say, as students get used to the patrols and teachers see that some of the volunteers are quite adept at controlling teen-agers.

“Most of the kids, including my son, still don’t want us here because we’re in the way of what they want to be doing,” said Frazier, who is regarded as one of the most successful campus watchdogs. “But we’re earning their trust.”

Although organizers are still ironing out scheduling difficulties and other problems attributed to the program’s newness, those overseeing the effort maintain that the pilot project is working well and may be expanded to other campuses.

Administrators welcome the additional eyes and ears on campus.

Morningside Principal Mallory Matthews credits the parents with reducing the number of students who cut class and says they have been dedicated employees because of their “vested interest in the school.”

He said the parents fill a void caused by a decline in the number of security guards assigned to Morningside High over the years. He said the parents are not considered security guards, however, and are instructed in their training session to report altercations to campus police officers and not to intervene themselves.

At Monroe, Principal Lacy Alexander said having even a small number of parents visible on campus shows students that parents are interested in the school and “generates an attitude that the school belongs to the community.”

During one recent sweep of the school grounds, Frazier escorted to the office a group of girls who were in the process of skipping their first class. Then, around another corner, he caught two boys forging tardy notes from their parents. They went to the office too.

Using skills refined as a minister, Frazier later negotiated with a teacher who had just kicked a student out of class. The teacher told Frazier that the student was being disrespectful. Frazier struck a deal. He would contact the students’ parents if the boy acted up again.

“I’m a peacemaker some of the time,” he explained later.

Typical of the kind of interaction and savvy Frazier brings to the job was an encounter he had toward the end of his three-hour shift. Two athletes approached him on a walkway, both with their hands over their left ears.

“You both have ear aches?” he asked, explaining later that they were removing their earrings before he spotted the dress-code violation.

“Every one of them has the ability to be devious,” Frazier said with a shake of his head. “I tell the kids that there’s no way in the world they, at age 17, can match wits with me, a 49-year-old minister. No way.”