A group of parents, called Parents on Patrol or POP, in the Bird Rock neighborhood of San Diego, are working together to keep students safe.
“The acronym is POP and it is simply addressing the need for having another set of eyes and feet on campus,” said Todd Marchner.
Marchner started the volunteer team at Bird Rock Elementary School three weeks ago. It came after the tragic shooting in Nashville, TN that left six people dead, including three children.
“[It] just gutted me and it was sort of the straw on top of the camel’s back where I sat down and I was just paralyzed with not being able to do anything in a terrible situation,” Marchner said. “So, I decided to try and do something.”
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Marchner went to the school’s interim principal, Jamie Jorgensen, who welcomed the idea with open arms.
“'You know what? That’s a good idea, let’s do it now. Let’s get some action going now,'” Marchner said, recalling Jorgensen’s reaction to the vision for POP.
It started as just a team of two parents, including Marchner. Since then, it has grown to include 20 parents, with more who are interested.
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“Right now we have about 20 and about another 50 with their hands raised just checking their schedules,” Marchner said. “It’s a no-brainer. It’s like ‘Of course, I’m in, let me check my schedule, and let’s just be a part of this’ because we all share the same purpose.”
The volunteers can be easily spotted on campus by their red shirts. The shirts are blank now, but Marchner says Oracle is supporting their community effort and eventually 'BRE POP' will be added to them.
Marchner said parents can sign up to volunteer in shifts of up to 90 minutes. Each person carries a phone in one hand and a radio in the other, while making their rounds both inside and outside of the school’s gates.
“It deters any type of intrusion and at the same time improves the response time,” Marchner said. “We alert the faculty with the radio and we alert the police with the phone.”
A spokesperson for the San Diego Unified School District told NBC 7 this is an example of a principal who is working with members of the school community who presented an idea, and they worked together to make it happen.
“I mean I am definitely not an activist at heart, but this one seemed to me as if it needed to be done,” Marchner said. ”Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
