Families of the Pelham Union Free School District were met with an email at 9 A.M. on January 6, 2025, when students returned from winter break. The email was in reference to the hiring of new security guards to offer enhanced safety to Pelham Middle School and Pelham Memorial High School. However, these were not the security guards we know and love. Breaking from tradition, the administration in the district did not hire in-house security monitors, but rather opted for hiring from an outside security company, Briger Security Services. In the email, Dr. Champ claimed that the district had been “working hard over the last several months” to fill vacant positions, a claim that rings true only at surface level. In fact, the hiring of the new Briger security guards is only the most recent chapter in a tumultuous saga of tension between the district administration and in-house monitors at PMS and PMHS.

When I started researching this topic, I reached out to Dr. Champ, Mr. Llewellyn, and Dr. Titone for a comment on the hiring practices of the new Briger guards. After an initial period where I did not receive a response, Dr. Champ responded to questions in which I asked her about the new security guards. Additionally, in an effort to get both sides of the story, I decided to interview three Pelham in-house security guards, all of whom have worked in the district for many years. They clued me in not only on the surprising manner in which the Briger guards were hired, but also on the alleged mistreatment that led to the need to hire outside security guards in the first place.

The first issue in the hiring of the security guards was a lack of transparency from the administration, both towards the families in the district, as well as towards the in-house monitors who were already working for the schools. One security guard told me that they were only informed of the Briger hiring “days before everyone else was told” and that there was “an extreme lack of transparency from the administration.” One thing Dr. Champ stated in her email to families was that the district was attempting to hire in-house monitors, but failed to sufficiently fill the positions. In a response to a question about the vacant positions amongst the security monitor ranks, Dr. Champ responded, “…this has been an ongoing recruitment for a few years. While our current monitor staff and building administrators have worked to fill gaps as much as possible, we determined that it was no longer sustainable to not fill these positions so took the steps necessary to procure these services.” I further asked her about the reason for these vacancies, asking “Do you believe that compensation, treatment or conditions of current security monitors in the school could be a factor in the lack of interest in these vacant positions?” Dr. Champ responded by saying, “While pay rate and conditions can certainly be a factor, we have been successful in filling some positions, so that tells me that it is not what is preventing people from applying.” However, the answer from the security guards to this question was a resounding yes. All three guards I spoke to highlighted stagnant pay, sitting at $21 per hour, as one of the main reasons for the lack of interest in the positions. This is drastically different from one of the responses I received from Dr. Champ, who said, “There are annual raises for monitors, so the pay rate has grown steadily over the years.*” Even before examining the exact numbers, I would reject her prior assertion that being able to fill some positions means that pay isn’t what is preventing people from applying. Since what constitutes “good pay” is highly subjective and dependent on life circumstances, it is an error to ignore pay concerns given the filling of some positions. In fact, it would make more sense to see the still vacant positions as a representation of poor pay being a major concern. This fact was corroborated by one monitor I spoke to, who is older and has kids. While the current $21 an hour figure may be sufficient pay for some younger guards just starting in the position, it often isn’t the case for older individuals who could have been interested if the pay was higher. All three monitors I spoke to strongly disagreed with Dr. Champ’s statement about steadily growing wages, stating, “We tried to sit down with people in the administration –Dr. Champ, Mr. Hricay –but they never wanted to give us a raise.” All three monitors I spoke to said that they wanted a raise to $25 an hour for their work, and that that would be a sufficient amount to attract new talent, as well as to keep them happy. One major issue with the new Briger guards is their cost inefficiency, which Dr. Champ herself stated in her response to my questions, citing the overhead costs of hiring from Briger and stating, “Hiring our own staff is also a more cost effective approach.” In fact, according to the monitors I interviewed, the company is charging the district $32.95 per guard, per hour. Dr. Champ was quick to add that, “While the cost per guard is higher, the rate of pay for the individuals doing the work is relatively comparable after overhead costs.” Essentially, her logic is that pay was not a major hindrance for potential hires as previously stated, and the fact that Briger guards make a similar figure after overhead costs seems to support that notion. I disagree with this assertion as well. Even if the guard pay after overhead costs was similar, wouldn’t it make more sense to offer the difference in overhead costs as a raise to the already employed in-house monitors? Dr. Champ herself admitted the increased costs of hiring from Briger, so it would follow that offering a raise (any number between $21 and $32.95) would actually save the district money, as well as rewarding the monitors who have been loyal to the Pelham district for years. Furthermore, Dr. Champ herself told me, “Our preference is always to hire our own staff.” If that were true, and offering them a raise would actually save the district money, in addition to attracting more outside talent, why wouldn’t they have offered a higher wage in the initial attempted hiring process of monitors? It does not make any sense to me. While Dr. Champ’s response to this question would be that pay is not a major factor in the reason for the hiring shortage, I have already stated why I disagree with that assertion. Simply, it is always true that higher pay will attract more applicants: that is basic economics. Additionally, the monitors I spoke to disagreed with the idea that overhead costs account for all of the pay discrepancy, stating, “The Briger guards make more than us.” They added that the refusal from the administration to offer them a substantive raise was one of many “slaps in the face.” The alleged poor treatment from the district didn’t just stop there, but continued when the monitors responded.

One monitor told me, “Because of the bad pay and treatment, we stopped doing after school events. We did our eight hours and went home. They didn’t want to pay us more than $21 an hour.” To fill the vacancies, the school district offered teachers who were willing to fill in at events $52 an hour for their services, according to a monitor. This would mean that the district refused to increase the pay of trained, loyal, experienced in-house monitors, but then turned around and offered teachers more than twice as much to do the same job to fill their vacancy. A monitor added, “We weren’t even asking for much, only a raise to $25, but they didn’t want to give it to us. We felt forced out for a while, and then they hired the Briger guards.” The monitors I talked to touted a strong relationship between them and the Briger guards, that the new security officers are good people who are easy to work with. However, they remain frustrated with the district who has refused to give them a raise, yet turns around and pays the Briger guards more for the same work. Or is it the same work? In fact, one monitor said, “The new [Briger] guards don’t do the lunchroom, and the lunchroom is short-staffed a lot.” Dr. Champ herself highlighted the “short-staffed” aspect of the security monitor rank in her original email to families, but was part of the same administration who refused to substantially increase monitor pay to attract better candidates. Furthermore, this lunchroom fact negates a point Dr. Champ made in response to one of my questions, where she said, “Security guards provided through Briger Security come with certification as security guards and background checks, so are equipped to provide the level of training necessary to continue to provide the level of safety and security we expect…they are prepared to assist fully.” Well, can they really assist fully if they don’t even go into major areas of the school like the lunchroom? One monitor’s response seemed to dispute this claim, where they said, “Some of the new guards weren’t aware of the procedures for all of the drill training we have to do.” The monitors related this difference in experience to differences in pay and compensation, highlighting the unfairness of their current situation. On the issue of compensation, a monitor said, “Champ got a $30,000 raise last year.** We only got a 30 cent raise. How is that fair?” While Dr. Champ stated that wages for monitors are “steadily increasing,” the monitors’ testimony disagrees. After all, if the administration can’t give the requested $4 an hour raise to the monitors who give so much to keep the students safe, is it believable when they say they “care about safety”? My answer would be no…at least not fully.

We live in a district that is seeing administrators leave left and right. Disgruntled security monitors are being refused raises, and new positions are running vacant. A large swath of teachers are retiring. It seems everyone that has the ability to, is running away from Pelham schools as fast, and as far, as they can. I cannot attest to the connectedness of these events, but the people I have spoken to, both in writing this article and otherwise, all seem to have a shared frustration for the running of the district administration. The way in which outside security guards were hired is one of many examples of a district administration who does not appear to be valuing its own. However, all of us love Pelham. But nonetheless, as one monitor I spoke to put it, “The administration is taking away that love.”

ADDITIONAL NOTES:

*After the publishing of this article, Dr. Champ further quantified the raises of most school monitors. According to Dr. Champ, “The pay raise for most monitors over the past few years goes as follows:

2022-23: 2.1%

2023-24: 3.6%

2024-25: 3.0%”

She further added, “These raises are largely in line, or slightly more, than cost-of-living increases received by other District employees over the same time span.”

**After the publishing of this article, Dr. Champ clarified her raise from last year. According to Dr. Champ, her raise last year was actually $5,682.