Surely by now everyone has noticed that we have a new officer on staff at the school, Officer Speight. You can see him every morning by the tennis courts and at the top of the dirt parking lot. He is also there at the end of the day, and one could also see him around that area throughout the day.

Many kids are confused about what all it is that Officer Speight actually does. Officer Speight said, “First thing in the morning I do traffic control. During the day, if kids are trying to skip I have to see if they have classes or not. If they do have classes, then I send them back to the office or write them up. I watch for the career center students and make sure they get on the bus.” At the end of the day, Officer Speight does traffic control again.

A lot of students also wonder how he passes the time. Officer Speight said, “During the day, I also go around and check all of the cars and give tickets to people that don’t have parking permits, so that kind of passes the time. I go to the main office when I write people up and give it to Ms. Graham or one of the administrators.”

Senior Zack Moorer has gotten one of these tickets before. Zack said, “I forgot that I didn’t have my parking permit one day, so when I went to my car to go home I had a warning on my car.”

Though his job may sound boring, interesting things tend to happen to him. “I get people that try to run away from me. That’s the fun part.”, Speight said. “I get to chase after them.”

Officer Speight has to deal with students that don’t obey the rules every day. Sometimes, kids even try to ignore him when he is giving them instructions. Speight said, “Really what they ignore me about is when they are trying to get to their car to go to the career center when they’re not supposed to. I have to call them and call them. Also when I stop kids because there is traffic coming; they seem to not like that either. “It’s disappointing that students at Chapin High would just ignore Officer Speight. He does have the authority to write students up.

Not many kids know Officer Speight on a personal level. His main hobbies involve exercise. He said, “Weightlifting and I like to run. Stuff like that.” Though he said that he likes his job here at Chapin, Officer Speight said that he eventually wants to move on to another job. He said, “I want to do entry level management. Really anywhere.”

Having to deal with disobedient kids every day, Officer Speight just wants kids to follow the rules that they already know. “Just follow the rules. Just stay in your class, and don’t try to skip. If you think that I have a frown on my face sometimes, I’m just trying to be serious about my job. Overall I’m a really nice guy if you get to know me.”

Officer Speight mentioned that he does enjoy working here. Students should know that he is not out to get you. He just wants kids to follow the rules and it is his job to enforce them. He said, “Overall I’ve had a good experience with this school, the kids are pretty good, so I’m pretty happy about the job.”