Shaler Area calls for security to monitor smoking in school

Shaler Area School District officials hope hiring security guards on a temporary basis will smoke out students fond of puffing cigarettes in the high school bathrooms.

The school board agreed to vote Wednesday on a plan to temporarily hire two security guards from Allied Security Inc. The district already employs two of the company's guards whose duties are to catch people parking at the high school without permits.

The guards will not act "as police," but will report students who smoke in the rest rooms to school officials, said Superintendent Donald Lee.

Although teachers are "diligent" in keeping the volume of student smokers down, the problem has gone beyond the faculty's control, Lee said.

Parents have been calling board members and writing letters to the administration, and students are complaining as well.

Melody Miller, a student government representative who attended a school board agenda session Wednesday, said clouds of smoke in the high school's bathrooms are the worst problems students face each day.

The security guards would not replace teachers serving as hall monitors. Guards would only report students to the high school office and would ask for a teacher's assistance if a student refuses to cooperate.

"(The guards) are under clear direction ... (that) their role is not to be our disciplinarians," Lee said.

The administration disciplines students who are caught smoking once or twice. But after a third offense, students are required to appear in the courtroom of District Justice Robert P. Dzvonick of Shaler Township, where they may have to pay a fine.