Abel Reyes, who has been a security guard and track-and-field coach at Oak Park and River Forest High School for more than 30 years, knows what change looks like. The kids, he said, come and go — each year a slightly new crowd of student pedestrians backpacking across Lake Street, where it intersects with Scoville Avenue.
The street is one of the high school’s busiest, said Randy Braverman, OPRF’s director of campus security. That’s why he only assigns the intense responsibility of making sure students get across it safely to experienced security personnel like Reyes and only over a span of a few years. The stress of the assignment, Braverman said, can be taxing.
“I try to move [security personnel] as much as I can because it’s a hectic job. I want to make sure they’re fresh. But I’d rather have our guys out there than hiring just a regular crossing guard because we know the kids and they respond well to our security,” he said.
Braverman noted that each security person assigned crossing duties undergoes training from the Oak Park Police Department and is typically paired with another staffer during the assignment. He said students’ responsiveness to the guards is often predicated on the familiarity students have with security personnel and a mutual respect based on his staff’s professionalism.
“I think I have an extremely good relationship and understanding with the students,” Reyes said. “I always call the kids sir and ma’am, and even when they’re not as respectful, I tell them, ‘I’m going to talk to you in a respectful manner anyway because that’s how I was raised.'”
And that’s how he raised his five children, all of whom graduated from OPRF. Reyes and his wife, an Oak Park native, moved to the village in 1983 after the two met while studying at the University of Illinois Chicago. After renting out an apartment for a few years, the couple found a house in the neighborhood near the school, where they’ve been ever since.
So what’s changed the most for Reyes?
“I think technology is the biggest change, in terms of cellphones, computers, and the Internet. The kids have become more open and more direct. They talk more openly about things,” he said.
What hasn’t changed, Reyes said, is the quality of people. It’s an observation the veteran coach is uniquely suited to make, considering his vantage point. Although he has only been assigned crossing duties at Lake and Scoville for about three years, he’s witnessed other crossings and transitions.
“The quality of kids and families we have in this community has not changed,” he said. “When people come back and say, the school has changed, I say no. Everybody thinks that the best time [in the high school’s history] is when they were here. I tell them, no, life is an ongoing situation.”
CONTACT: michael@oakpark.com