Oak Park and River Forest High School has hired Oak Park police sergeant Traccye Love as its new director of campus safety and support.
Love will begin working at OPRF Jan.5.
She has been a sergeant for the community policing unit since June 2023. Love, a resident of Oak Park, joined the department as a patrol officer in 2011. She served as a patrol officer and a sergeant in that division.
Love’s hiring was part of the consent agenda at the Dec. 21 meeting of the OPRF Board of Education.
Love has worked closely with OPRF in her role as part of the community policing unit. In 2017, Love filled in intermittently as the school’s school resource officer during the time when an Oak Park police officer was stationed at the school daily.
Love, 40, told the Wednesday Journal that it is was a difficult decision for her to leave the department, but she is passionate about school safety.
“I’m very excited to start a new chapter of my career,” Love told the Wednesday Journal in a telephone interview. “I feel like right now school safety is such a huge topic of concern for a lot of people for a lot of valid reasons. I am a mother. My two sons, Brett and Bryce, are students at Oak Park and River Forest High School, so I have the same desires to keep them safe just like every other parent.”
Love said she likes the idea of having an active role in keeping her sons and all OPRF students safe.
“I felt like working at the high school will give me a direct seat at the table to be a part of that initiative,” Love said.
Loves knows some of the current security officers at OPRF.
“I’ve had an opportunity to work with them over the years, whether it be when I served as an intermittent school resource officer, or if I had to respond to the school for different calls for services and reports. So, I’ve gotten to know them pretty well, so I’m really excited to be working with them in a different capacity,” Love said.
Love grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Chatham neighborhood and earned a bachelor’s degree from Millikin University, and later, a master’s degree in criminal and social justice from Lewis University.
Love joined the police department as a patrol officer in 2011 after working for nearly five years as 911 dispatcher for the Downers Grove police department.
Love said that it was a hard decision to leave this department.
“It’s with mixed emotions because I have really enjoyed being a police officer here,” Love said. “I’m going to be really sad but I’m also not far away.”
School officials have said they hope that Love can provide some stability at the campus safety director position. Love is replacing Cindy Guerra, who resigned for personal reasons in November after being hired last summer. Guerra’s predecessor, Cherylynn Jones-McLeod, held the position for only one year.
Supt. Greg Johnson said that Principal Lynda Parker made the recommendation to hire Love.
“We’re really excited to have her coming on board,” Johnson said.
Johnson said that Love’s familiarity with the school was a plus for her in the hiring process.
“She knows our school and our students and she’s excited about working with them,” Johnson said. “Because of her recent experience at the Oak Park Police Department, she certainly knows the community very well, so that helps to further our collaboration and we’re excited about being in this situation considering especially because hiring somebody at this time of year for such a job can be challenging, but we’re really excited about where this ended up.”
Love’s salary will be $120,000 annually meaning that her pay for the remainder of the current fiscal year ending on June 30 will be $58,153.85.
