Eric Ingram, resource officer

Q: What were you doing before working security here?

A: “Well I call this the kid business, I’ve been in the kid business for 28 years. I’ve been a juvenile detention officer, I’ve been a juvenile corrections officer, I’ve been a juvenile probation officer, for twelve years. I’ve been a counselor for the family unit surrounding the kids, I’ve been a psychologist, probably not officially but I’ve served that role at a place. I’ve worked with troubled youth, I’ve worked with juvenile sex offenders, I’ve worked with… I’ve coached high school football for one year, and now I’m here, so it’s always been the kids, kid business.”

Q: What have you noticed about this school, that is either different or similar to the other security positions or psychology positions that you have played.

A: “These kids here are probably more free-er these are probably the most gifted kids I’ve ever dealt with. Like these kids can leave here and next thing you know, they’ll be at a university, they’ll be in a band they’ll be on tv, kids I usually have dealt with come from broken homes, I mean really broken homes. Some of them are DCFS division of children family services, where they have been taken out of the home. Some of them have been offended against, by another family member more hostile, more deviant situations. This here is more… kids are more gifted, they have an opportunity if they don’t do it here it’s because it’s their fault. See where I was working before  you know it could’ve been a family members fault for taken advantage of the kid or it could of been some other adults fault, so that’s the difference.”

Q: What is your goal, here at this school, what do you hope to accomplish?

A: “Well the goal at this school basically, is to continue striving for helping the kids, continue to motivate them. Always have these four cardinal principles that I stand for which is manhood and I’ll slash and put womanhood there, scholarship perseverance, and uplift. So I’m always talking to the fellows about manhood or the women about women hood, getting their education you know scholarship, not quitting so perseverance. And if they do get into that rut or that situation where they just, having a bad day feel some uplifts?”

Q: We have had a lot of fights and problems with behavior in the past at this school, as someone who is in security what do you feel we need to improve on in the school with that?

A:  “The communication amongst the staff, has to be well rounded has to be understood there has to be a connection to where everyone’s on the same page. We have to get the parents involved, a lot of things that happen here, could possibly not happen if there was more parental involvement more often. Not just a cookout one time or come meet with us once, you know it’s gotta be often. There’s really no reasons for it, I mean the fights that have occurred are for the silliest reasons, and I think my first 3-4 days here we had a fight, the reason was so silly that kids just stopped fighting. They were fighting and they just stopped, like why are we even fighting, I recognized at that moment that for the kids to stop fighting on their own that was pretty positive. But ya more involvement by the parents more communication with the staff.”

Q: Do you have anything else you would like to add as well?  

A: “Just that you know, I’m always willing to give my two cents, or extra be more informative for kids not just about security. Because like I said, I’ve been in all different facets of schools, the upbringing of youth, the upbringing of juvenile’s… athletics. And if there’s anything I can do, I’ll be more happy to do it.”

Q: Why have you chosen to work at this school, specifically.

A: “Well actually I didn’t get to choose, but I was glad I was chosen for this school, because, my background coming up was the arts, it was in music. I have a couple of pieces, a couple of songs that are in movies, television shows. And so when they picked this school I was like it’s perfect because I’m always down here anyway, I’m always around the fox theater, I’m always over there at KDHX at the stage so this was the perfect place for me.”