Oak Park and River Forest High School has a new director of campus safety. This will be the fourth person to hold the post in just the past two years.
Kristen Devitt was hired by the District 200 school board at a special board meeting earlier this month.
Devitt, who could not be reached for comment before deadline, currently works as director of security at Kaiser Permanente, a hospital in Honolulu. According to her LinkedIn profile she has held that post for the past two years.
She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Sociology from Illinois State University as well as a Masters in adult and continuing education and teaching from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Devitt will begin at OPRF on Aug. 1. Her annual salary will be $130,000 but was pro-rated to $118,544 to reflect her start date. Her hiring was approved by the school board during a closed session portion of a meeting on July 11.
She will be the district’s fourth director of campus security in two years. Devitt will be replacing Traccye Love who resigned from the position in April.
Previously the role has been held by Cherylynn Jones-McLeod, who resigned in June 2023, Cindy Guerra, who served for less than five months before resigning in November 2023, and Love, who left the district after five months.
The need for a new director was acknowledged by Supt. Greg. Johnson, who told Wednesday Journal that the high school needed “stability.”
In a previous interview with Wednesday Journal, Johnson expressed how the position can be a “challenging role,” and requires someone who not only has strong safety experience but also knows how to work with school districts and school boards.
Before her move to Hawaii, Devitt served as the director of office and school safety for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, an instructor for the National Association of School Resource Officers, and a lieutenant of patrol for the City of Beloit police department.
Devitt comes to the district with 25 years of professional experience in threat assessment, emergency management, interdisciplinary project coordination and adult education with a specialty in preventing targeted violence, emergency operations and critical incident response and recovery.