Catholic diocese schools to introduce armed guards
The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh is hiring armed security officers for its schools, including North Catholic High School, and Butler Catholic School is following suit by updating its own security measures.
Wendell Hissrich, who was hired as director of safety and security for the diocese in August to help update security in its 36 schools, will oversee the initiative. He has already hired four more supervisors, with a plan to hire six officers who will fulfill the security needs at schools.
Hissrich said security officers staffing the schools will be armed and will have access to medical bags containing items from naloxone to supplies to stop bleeding.
“They will have weapons to address the threat,” Hissrich said.
The diocese issued a news release indicating the guards would be armed, but Hissrich did not elaborate on what types of weapons the guards will possess.
“It’s just one tool they will have to address safety and security issues,” Hissrich said. “It’s my job to make sure they have the tools to address a medical emergency, some tools to address violence or even a fire.”
Hissrich added that he hopes to have the six security officers hired by March, with potentially more to come in the ensuing months.
Michelle Peduto, the diocese’s superintendent of schools, said this initiative is a long time coming, after years of parents and school community members asking if the children are safe in their schools. Additionally, the schools have been relying on administrative and teaching staff members to conduct training for emergency protocols, Peduto said.
“Trainings with our teachers and drills .... (have) been left to our principals to this point,” Hissrich said. “These (officers) are being integrated as part of our school community.”
The Rev. Charles Bober, president of North Catholic High School in Cranberry Township, said administrators of the individual schools in the diocese are working with diocese officials like Hissrich to coordinate the implementation of security guards in schools.
The full implementation of the updates could come at the start of next school year, according to Bober.
“We’ll talk to some of the consulting bodies in the schools to see what they need, so it is just fleshing out the safety and security needs,” said Bober, who is also pastor of St. Mark the Evangelist, which sponsors Holy Sepulcher and St. Kilian schools.
Bober said safety walkthroughs conducted by Hissrich and police at each of the schools was eye-opening, and alerted him and other officials of schools, such as North Catholic, as to what they needed to change for the safety of students.
“Each of our schools went through a pretty exhaustive report of various things we could do,” Bober said. “They said you should only have one handle on the doors, because you can put a two-by-four in between the handles and block someone from leaving. Even with the playgrounds, looking at how close they are to traffic.”
According to Bober, working with police and implementing security measures has been a “very new element” in his schools. However, he said community members have approached him with questions about security in the past.
“There is a renewed awareness of security in each building,” Bober said.
Butler Catholic School recently spent thousands of dollars upgrading security throughout the school, from its front doors to its video surveillance system.
Justin Hamby, director of technology at the school, said the upgrades follow security directives coming from the diocese, and were paid for in part by COVID-19 relief money the school received. He said the school's security technology was in need of an update, and the school embarked on an overhaul in January.
Upgrades started with the school’s main entrance. Over Christmas break, a new $60,000-plus front door with bulletproof glass and other advanced features was installed. The school is going from 25 security cameras to 45 high definition ones, and the school will use new visitor management software.
“We’ll have much higher-end and better visibility for the building interior. We’ll have much better night vision as well,” Hamby said of the new security cameras. “We’re putting in a new visitor management system; a (person’s) ID runs through a national database to make sure there is no previous crime, and as long as everything is good, it will print out visitor tag.”
Additionally, the school is updating its exit strategy.
“If you are exiting the building, the motion sensors would pick you up and you can walk out,” Hamby said of the old system. “They have a method of detecting the electricity within your skin. No longer can you fit stuff through the doors and fake the motion detectors to get through.”
Hamby said the school also reviews its emergency policies every two years with advisement from state police. He added that this school year is like a “transition year” in its relationship with the diocese, and Butler Catholic will see more involvement from the diocese next school year.
“They are regionalizing all the elementary schools,” Hamby said. “Next year, they assume full control.”
Hissrich said of the financial investment for the security upgrades throughout the schools “is not cheap,” but did not elaborate on the amount the diocese is paying for the officers or other upgrades.
“Not doing anything in my opinion would be more costly than doing what the diocese is committing to,” Hissrich said. “What amount can you put on a human life?”
He also the security officers will be dispatched to schools throughout the diocese depending on the needs of each school on a particular day. All of the supervisor roles will be full-time positions, and the security officer jobs will function like teacher roles, on a work schedule of about nine months of the year.
The supervisors and officers, Hissrich said, are being trained to take on more than a security guard would in a place like a hospital or business. They will have medical training, and are also being chosen based on their abilities to work with staff and students alike.
“The officers we hired will have at least a minimum of 10 years of experience. We have former Cranberry (Township) police, Allegheny (County) police,” Hissrich said. “They have been picked because they can deal with people, de-escalate situations.
Peduto also said the diocese is emphasizing that the security officers are meant to be resources for students as much as they are there to provide security.
“These are being integrated as part of our school community,” she said. “We want them to interact with the children and families as part of our Catholic school community.”
The hiring of four security supervisors and six officers is just the beginning of the diocese’s security upgrades for schools, according to Hissrich. He said the diocese is looking into bringing on more security officers once the first wave has been integrated.
“We’re going to look at the infrastructure in place, we’re going to look around the school and what events need to be covered,” Hissrich said. “As we put more and more officers, they will be more visible within the school.”
