Moniteau security officer acts as mentor for students
Walking 5 miles a day through the long halls of Moniteau Jr./Sr. High School is a typical day at the office for Garrick Lapusnak, the officer in charge of the school’s police department.
In those 5 miles Lapusnak accomplishes a lot, with the overall goal of providing an “essential safe environment for students and faculty” while also establishing relationships with students and getting to know them on a more personal level.
“I stress to all our officers on building relationship with students,” Lapusnak said. “It’s a different type of policing. I spent 25 years with the state police. This is more of a community-oriented role. I think it’s important to develop those relationships where we are more like a mentor to them.”
A work day for Lapusnak starts with a 7 a.m. arrival at the school, with the first order of business helping teachers set up and use the metal detectors for students to walk through upon their arrival.
“Once students arrive in the morning what we do is we have teachers assist with the metal detectors,” Lapusnak said. “All students have to come through screenings in the morning. That is run by the teachers, and we are a secondary support.”
Lapusnak and his fellow officers patrol the interior and exterior of the building, which houses around 600 students in grades seven through 12.
“I stress to the officers I want them out where they can be seen by the kids,” Lapusnak said. “I wanted to take that barrier down between law enforcement and the students. I want them to come to us like they can go to a teacher.”
In addition to normal policing duties, Lapusnak serves in an administrative role for the police department, in charge of four other full-time and four part-time officers.
Lapusnak sets their schedules, which could be for regular school day policing duties or for the many after-school activities the school hosts.
“We provide security for all our sporting events,” Lapusnak said. “That and any extracurricular activity, such as a play, musical or concert.”
Other administrative duties for Lapusnak include sitting on the school’s safety and safety wellness committees.
The safety committee discusses topics such as safety measures that are or might be put into place, with their recommendations being brought to the school board after committee approval.
The safety wellness committee discusses topics such as workers’ compensation cases and issues.
“I also act as a liaison for us and the Pennsylvania State Police,” Lapusnak said. “We do share information from school to school. A lot of the schools have state troopers that run their programs.”
Lapusnak has more than two decades of experience with the state police, where he said he expanded his knowledge by obtaining special trainings and certifications.
“I became a firearms instructor. I was a first aid CPR instructor,” Lapusnak said. “I also became an alternate community service officer which is where I got a lot of training pertaining to schools.
“In my final seven years I moved into the field of forensics. I was a forensic service member, and we covered five counties — basically responded to all major crimes or suspicious death investigations and things such as robberies.”
The Moniteau school police department is a recognized name throughout the commonwealth as an actual police department, Lapusnak said.
Lapusnak said he helped start the department following his retirement from the state police in April 2018.
“The week I retired I had seen an article in the newspaper where the school board had a large turnout at one of the meetings,” Lapusnak said. “They wanted to put some security measures in place. I took it upon myself to write a proposal for the school district.
“I met with the former superintendent, and they set the safety committee up. We met once a week for about two months and went over the pros and cons of having police officers. After these meetings it was determined that there are more positives.”
The committee then recommended to the school board that it thought it would be good to move forward with the school police, and today, Lapusnak and his crew are in their sixth year of duty for the school.
During that time, Lapusnak said there was one incident where they had a person in the school parking lot during the arrival of students that did cause a stir on the property.
Lapusnak said this person was highly intoxicated and had loaded firearms in their vehicle.
“It was handled very well,” Lapusnak said. “We got state police involved right away, and we were able to have the subject apprehended.”
Lapusnak is from New Kensington, where he attended Valley High School. He went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania and graduated with a degree in criminology.
After starting the school police department, Lapusnak joined the Moniteau varsity baseball coaching staff and is in his third year as an assistant coach.
“I thought I would take a little time off for myself,” Lapusnak said. “I wanted to go work in the school systems. Sometimes when the kids get to a Y in the road, if we can keep them from going down the wrong road and get them on the right path to me that's very gratifying.”
Lapusnak said he can’t stress enough how important communication skills are for a job such as his, especially when it comes to helping students who might have been dealt a bad hand in life.
“A lot of these kids don't have someone after school they can go home to and talk to,” Lapusnak said. “You have to let them know they are important. You are there for them, to help them any way you can.”
This article first appeared in the February edition of Butler County Business Matters.
