The State College Area School Board on Monday approved a new contract with a security services firm to continue providing hourly security officers for several schools and other district needs.
Board members voted 8-0 in favor of the five-year agreement with Standing Stone Consulting, Inc. to provide 89 guard hours per day at the high school, Delta/North Building and the district’s two middle schools. The contract, which has an additional two-year renewal option, allows for a change in the number of guard hours based on need.
Standing Stone also will provide support for district sporting events and other activities, and fills vacant crossing guard positions.
Under the terms of the contract, the rate for each security officer will increase from $26.50 per hour to $29 per hour. For subsequent years, the rate will increase by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, not to exceed 3% annually, according to a memo from district finance and operations officer Randy Brown and purchasing manager Keith Dingwall.
The district last entered a three-year contract with Standing Stone in 2022, which expired on June 30.
The new contract includes an a weekly incentive payment of $200 to Standing Stone if 100% security officer hours are filled. Brown said that the company will distribute those incentive payments to security staff.
“Our largest difficulty has been just getting the right number of staff each and every day and that’s why we’ve put into the agreement an incentive for them to meet their required number of hours on a daily basis, so that we can encourage them along,” Brown said. “They have assured me that all of that incentive money that they receive will go back directly to their employees. It will not stay within the company, and they have short term and long term incentive plans that they will be putting in place for their employees.”
Private security officers are under the supervision of building administration, but school resource officers — local police officers assigned to the high school and middle school — provide guidance and suggestions.
They are required to undergo district-mandate trainings, including an in-service training prior to the start of the school year designed “to communicate responsibilities and approach with an emphasis on age appropriate expectations at the different school levels,” according to the memo. The contract also requires Standing Stone employees to have state and federal criminal background checks and child abuse history clearances.
Security guards typically provide monitoring, security entrance staffing, assistance with building flow and traffic control. Unless an incident requires immediate intervention, they call in administrators or resource officers to address behavior issues.
Brown said the need for private security assistance has grown over the years, particularly because of the size of the new State High building that opened in 2018.
“It’s a large building and we have growing and unique needs that are helping to manage the flow in the high school operations,” Brown said.
Standing Stone was the only company “that would have been able to fulfill our unique needs,” and “had come pretty highly recommended from some of the law enforcement professionals that we work with here in the area,” Brown added.
