“I’m at all the schools but I’m just a floater, wherever they need me is where I go,” Officer Jordan says.

What’s it like being a front door officer at Shawnee Mission South? Hours spent sitting in a seat located in a quiet, cold floored room, continuous listening to the sound of the door buzzer once someone new enters. Seeing new faces and welcoming them with a warm smile and repeating, “ID please?” Everything else quiet but the air vents.

The officers stare and look while waiting for visitors to arrive, following the green belt divider to their office and departing with another door buzz. They have conversations with their student helper. They send their student helper for tasks to complete around the school. Officers keep their school safe and secure by monitoring the security camera footage that’s set up in their office.

South officers have a lot of down time, they make their workstation comfortable. The school’s students are still getting used to this system. A girl in a blue shirt, leggings and flip flops looks puzzled as if she was not sure if she could walk out of the front door without permission from Officer Jordan. Next she closes the door then heads to Jordan’s office to get verification that she could leave. Once she leaves, another blonde haired student follows her path while running to a soccer coach by the side doors.

Another slightly sunny but windy day ends with the room still silent and the birds whispering quietly in their nests. The five flags ruffle through the wind as a school bus pulls up by the choir door. Officer Jordan sits in her chair on her laptop waiting for her walkie talkie to go off to announce her next task.