Security guards sent into South Australian schools, Boyer confirms

The South Australian government has confirmed “static guards” have been sent into multiple public schools - but only one has been revealed.

South Australian schools are increasingly hiring private security guards to protect students and staff from violence and threatening behaviour, Education Minister Blair Boyer has confirmed.

Mr Boyer’s spokeswoman told the Sunday Mail there had been “an increase in static guard use at schools in relation to issues involving violence or a threat of violence” between the second half of last year and this year to the end of May.

In the latter half of 2021, static guards were used in five different schools on 19 days, according to the figures provided.

In the first five months of this year, guards were used in six different schools for periods ranging from single days to multiple weeks, though the total number of days was not specified.

Almost $59,000 was spent on security guards in the 2020 school year, rising to more than $137,000 last year.

Education minister Blair Boyer at the Whyalla Secondary School after a series of violent incidents were revealed earlier this year.

“Reasons for deploying static guards in addition to violence or threats of violence include presence at formal events such as graduations, sports days or where parents will be onsite to pay fees over a number of days, building works, prolonged power outages and vandalism which compromises the security of the site,” Mr Boyer’s spokeswoman said.

Playford International College is known to be one of the schools where guards have been used.

Mr Boyer would not name the rest of the schools, which he said represented a “very small number of sites” compared to the total of more than 500.

He suggested schools may be experiencing Covid-related disruption that would eventually settle down.

“If principals come to me or the department and say that they feel they might need the support of private security guards, we’re always happy to consider that, because we trust our principals to know their sites best, to know the needs of their communities,” Mr Boyer said.

“And if they think there is a place for this, then we will consider that and support that wherever it is appropriate. But there's nothing to me at this stage which indicates we've got a growing problem with the use of security guards.”

Mr Boyer said there was no specified threshold or definition of where security was justified.

It was simply provided where a school might benefit “just to calm things down”.

“From what I’ve seen, in most cases it does tend to work and then the security guards might not be needed again,” he said.

“Sometimes they’re needed for longer periods … sometimes in cases of violence between students, sometimes cases of violence from students against staff.

“I would hope that we can one day be in a place where we don’t need (security) anymore, but I accept that there is a place for them and I accept that our principals know what’s best for their school communities.”

Despite the figures, he said: “I don’t think we’re seeing any indication of an increase in this, despite the fact that I think we have probably seen a spike in poor behaviour in schools because of the Covid pandemic.”