Once again, every school in Wesley Chapel but one received either an A or B grade from the state, including John Long Middle School (an A school for the 13th consecutive year, and Sand Pine Elementary (an A school for the 19th time in 21 years). Also, Wiregrass Elem. earned its first-ever A & the Union Park Academy charter school has received an A after its first full school year.
Eugene Figueroa was sitting in the living room of his Spring Hill home when he first saw the reports of another school shooting, this time on Feb. 14 of this year at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, FL.
Figueroaâs heart dropped. He felt sick. He could not believe that once again, helpless and unsuspecting children had been gunned down in their classrooms.
In the aftermath, the debate raged for days and months â how can we stop this from happening again?
Figueroa, a 51-year-old retired correctional officer, had his own ideas, and they didnât involve arming teachers or running schools like a military base.
His idea involved people like him, retired law enforcement, retired military, retired security.
âIâm right here,â he yelled one night at his television as pundits argued over the best course of action.
As it turned out, Figueroa wasnât alone. The idea of requiring an armed security officer at every school in Floridaâs 67 countywide districts was almost immediately passed into law following the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas, with $67 million set aside to fund it. While that wasnât enough to pay for actual police officers, counties like Pasco had opted to hire 55 full-time âguardiansâ for its 49 elementary schools.
âWe had 200 people apply in the first two days,â says Pasco County assistant superintendant for support services Elizabeth Kuhn. âWe had to shut the ad down.â
Among the first to apply were Figueroa, now stationed at Seven Oaks, Roy Wright, who is at Veterans, and Fred Jackson at Quail Hollow elementary schools.
When the county launched the school security program, it was looking for very specific people. Previous experience in law enforcement, security or the military was a must, and the ability to relate to children and thrive in a school environment was just as important.
âA lot of the job would be interacting with kids, not just standing up against a wall,â Kuhn said. âThis was not just a law enforcement job, it was not just a school job, it was both.â
That made it perfect for Jackson, a soft-spoken, 52-year-old retired police officer from Fort Myers.
So, Who Are These Guys?
Jackson had worked with children his entire adult life. He was a D.A.R.E. officer, helping to keep kids from getting involved in drugs and gangs, and was a school resource officer for 10 years.
âMy whole life was trying to make life better for people in predominantly poor areas,â Jackson says.
That included time working the streets in some of Fort Myersâ most drug-infested areas, and watching the crack epidemic take off and, unfortunately, flourish.
Quail Hollowâs security guard sees himself as a mentor, much in the way he viewed his middle school football coach, who was also a police officer and often wore his uniform to practices.
âThat really appealed to me,â he says.
Football was Jacksonâs plan B. He was a standout safety for Florida A&M High in Tallahassee, and earned a scholarship to Florida A&M University (also in Tallahassee) before his playing days were scuttled by a neck injury.
He was working a security job in Atlanta when his wife Eugenia, a third-grade teacher at Woodland Elementary in Zephyrhills, told him about the opportunity.
âI was saddened by the Parkland shooting, thinking about all the innocent kids who didnât have a chance to mature and grow up to be whatever they wanted to be,â Jackson says. âSo, the chance to reach kids and protect kids, this was the best thing for me. I really saw this as a calling.â
Like every school security officer, Jackson underwent 132 intensive hours of training this summer in preparation, a good many of those hours dedicated to the gun range and live shooter simulations.
In Pasco, school security officers wear a ballistic vest, and carry a gun on one hip and a Taser on the other. âAnd we have ample amounts of ammunition,â Jackson says.
Jackson loves his interactions with the kids at Quail Hollow, describing it as a family.
And, while he understands why some parents may have initially been leery of an armed guard around their children, just the other day a father there to pick up his son walked up to him to thank him for what he is doing.
âI pray for you guys every night,â he told Jackson, who has a job he wishes wasnât necessary. But, it is one he feels it is one of the most important he has ever had.
âThe only reason we are here is to protect your babies,â Jackson says, âand the teachers, so they can teach your babies.â
 At the end of the day, the No. 1 job for a school security officer is to run towards a threat and try and eliminate it. It is not for the feint of heart, but then again, neither is Rikers Island, New York Cityâs notorious jail complex.
Because he spent 20 years working on the island, it may be hard to imagine Figueroa, a Puerto Rico-born, Bronx-raised retired corrections officer, being afraid of much.
A graduate of Norman Thomas High in Manahattan, Figueroa and his best friend both were attracted to being New York City cops. While his friend became a police officer, however, Figueroa decided to go the correctional officer route.
His first real job was at Rikers. He started at the Otis Bantum Center (OBC), and spent time working in some of the islandâs other nine jails before transitioning to a transportation officer, hauling the bad guys back and forth.
Only six months into his job in 1990, Rikers Island erupted into a riot after an inmate assaulted an officer. That year, there were 2,500 violent incidents on the island.
âPretty hair raising,â says Figueroa. âI was only one year in, and that was an eye opening experience. Luckily, Godâs grace stood with me for 20 years.â
He and his wife Yvonne moved to Spring Hill in 2015, and since then, Eugene has spent most of his time fishing. But, the father of two grown children and grandfather to 1-, 7- and 8-year-olds, he, too, was sickened, and driven to apply to be a school security officer, by what happened in Parkland.
Like Jackson, Figueroa sees himself as a mentor to the students, and the first line of defense against any outside danger.
He is a presence during drop off and pick up times, and during the day, walks around campus, eyes always open, the route always varying.
âIâm like a junkyard dog, roaming the property,â he says.
When he peeks in on classrooms at Seven Oaks, heâll flash a big smile or a thumbs up, with teachers and students often replying in kind. The school, he says, as have most of the parents, has warmed up to his presence. âSome are receptive, some arenât and thatâs okay,â Figueroa says. âTheyâre going to love me at the end of the day when Iâm the one taking a bullet for one of their kids, God forbid.â
Wright also hopes that never has to happen for any of his fellow security officers, but he has spent his whole life preparing for it.
He joined the military in 1986 after graduating from high school. He was Military Police, and was stationed in Germany from 1986-94, and when he returned to Augusta, GA, he joined a Special Reaction (or SWAT) team.
After leaving the military in 2000, Wright became a high-threat diplomat security contractor, working in Bosnia and Kuwait, and, for 16 years, in Iraq.
In 2016, he traded in that stressful career for a local security job in the hopes of settling down with his fiancée.
When the Parkland shootings took place, his first reaction was to think of a way to help. The school security job allows him to do that.
âI can tell you that every person in my class, and we started with 58, everyone either had grandchildren or children and all felt as strongly as I did about being here and taking care of our younger generation,â Wright says.
After his training. Wright chose to be stationed at Veterans Elementary, because he is a veteran who wanted to settle down in Wesley Chapel.
He says the transition to spending his days around the kids he is responsible for protecting is âwonderful.â
On his first day, he arrived to find âWelcome to the team, Royâ written on a dry erase board on the wall behind his desk, which is in a hallway. He has no plans to wipe it off.
âFrom day one, everyone has been so supportive,â he says.
The kids call him Mr. Roy, or Mr. Security, which makes him laugh.
He is always on the move, checking gates and doors, and keeping a close eye on the school playground, which faces S.R. 54.
âThere were some parents who were skeptical,â Wright says. âI had a father tell me, âMr. Roy, initially I wasnât very fond of the program, but I travel (S.R. 54) here periodically and to see you standing outside the playground like you do, taking care of our childrenâŠ.well, I want to apologize and say thank you.ââ
The kids at the school have taken notice as well. One little boy, Wright says, came up to him a few weeks ago and asked why he hadnât seen the security officer that day during recess. Wright had been in a meeting, and the boy had noticed that the footprints Wright usually left near the playground werenât there.
âI missed you out there,â the boy said.
âIâm sorry, buddy,â Wright replied.
The moment cemented what he had hoped going in â that his presence would be felt, and would make everyone feel safer.
That feeling is likely pervasive across not only Wesley Chapel, but also across Pasco County and the state. While Figueroa, Jackson and Wright wish the jobs they have and love werenât necessary, they feel strongly that they are.
âIâm wholeheartedly into this program and feel strongly about it, but it is unfortunate that it is a necessity now,â Wright says. âItâs a shame our children have to be protected by a person like me, or a sheriffâs officer or police officer. But thatâs what weâre here for, and thatâs what we will do.â
Quail Hollow Elementary (QHE) students Gracie Evans, Madison Gulley, Katelyn OâNeil and Lindsey Overland will be competing in a âGridiron Challengeâ on Saturday, May 19, at the Tampa Bay Buccaneersâ training facility at One Buc Place.
But, donât expect the 10- and 11-year-old fifth-graders to be knocking anyone down with ferocious hits.
Instead, they will be trying to knock some people out with their Alfredo Smothered Roasted Red Pepper & Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Swirls.
The Wesley Chapel girls will take part in a culinary competition against students from three other schools in the annual Gridiron Cooking Challenge, part of the âFuel Up to Play 60â initiative, an in-school nutrition and physical activity program run by the National Dairy Council and the NFL.
The event is free and open to the public to attend. And, while itâs still a few weeks away at our press time, the girls say they are already getting nervous.
âI think about it a lot. Iâm very excited,â Katelyn says, with her teammates nodding in agreement.
At the competition, the Quail Hollow quartet will have an hour to prepare their signature dish for a panel of judges, including a Florida dairy farmer, the Bucsâ executive chef, a representative from Publix and teenage culinary whiz Zac Kara, a former MasterChef Junior competitor on FOX-TV.
The QHE team has its own culinary whiz and former television competitor in Gracie. In 2016, when she was just 9-years-old, she battled against nine other kid cooks from across the country on Food Networkâs âStar Kidsâ cooking show.
On that show, Gracie had to present a live audition to judges, prepare dishes on the fly and incorporate social media â such as a Snapchat cooking tip â into her cooking presentation. She still maintains a popular Instagram page, where she posts her most current dishes.
Itâs a skill set she picked up from her mother, Juliana, a well-known dessert maker who has appeared on NBC-TVâs âThe Today Show,â as well as the Food Network and local TV. She describes herself as a âfreelance food stylist,â and her daughter is following in her footsteps.
It was while both were giving demonstrations at the Southern Womenâs Fair last October that Gracie was introduced to the Florida Dairy Council, which suggested she take part in the councilâs upcoming competition.
The idea of a team competition appealed to Gracie, as opposed to the kid-to-kid cooking combat she went through at Food Network. She decided to team up with Madison, Katelyn and Lindsey, with fifth-grade teacher Alysha Moscarelli and Juliana helping to guide the girls.
âIt will definitely be better than my first time,â Gracie says. âYou will be able to rely on other people. It helps you relax more. You wonât be as nervous.â
The Power Of Teamwork
In fact, each girl has her own role to play on the team, forming a finely-tuned unit.
Gracie started brainstorming immediately after finding out about the competition. She pitched the Council with one of the recipes she served on the Food Network, modifying it by replacing the recipeâs marinara sauce with Alfredo sauce, as the competition calls for dairy-based recipes.
âI changed it a little bit,â Gracie says. âIt was really easy to make and it is an interesting dish because it has a lot of components that, all together, taste really good.â
One of those components, which provides a secondary dash of dairy, could be called the âsecret sauceâ â yogurt.
âIt made it a little creamier, and yogurt has that tart kind of a bite,â Juliana says. âIt plays very nicely.â
Katelyn also helps with the Alfredo sauce. âWe put a lot of work into it and practice and tasting, making sure itâs real smooth,ââ she says. âAnd, we have a lot of back-up plans, in case itâs not perfect.â
Lindseyâs job is the lemon ricotta filling, which she says she makes with ricotta cheese (still more dairy), zested lemon, salt and black pepper.
âWe mix it all up and put it (on the noodles) and roll it all up,â she says.
Madison is responsible for the roasted pepper sun-dried tomato, which is blended with pesto, baby spinach, parsley and olive oil before being incorporated into the lasagna noodles.
âItâs very delicious,â says Madison, who is dubbed the âPesto Queenâ by her teacher.
Lindsey and Madison both say that since joining the Gridiron Challenge team, they have taken a greater interest in cooking and now make more dishes around their homes.
âI really enjoy doing the cooking,â Lindsey says. âBut, I think it all started with this competition.â
The team has been practicing for three months now, sometimes at home, other times at school, where they push three desks together and set up their stations.
Moscarelli, a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering & Math) teacher who has all four girls in two separate math and science classes at Quail Hollow, says she has enjoyed watching them work together in preparation for the upcoming competition, not to mention all the taste-testing she has been able to indulge in.
âItâs nice to see them use their critical thinking skills, communication skills and teamwork in everyday life,â she says. âAnd, the recipe is delicious.â
The girls are all friends and have each brought their own special talents to the cooking table â with a mix of brainstorming and experimentation.
âThey started to talk about it at lunch,â Moscarelli says, âand they would say, âOoh, what if we added this to the recipe?,â and then would go home and try different things and alter the ingredients. They all jumped right in.â
The recipe is finalized, and the team is now working on the little things, like plating and timing. They will have to plate and present four dishes for the judges, and also are responsible for producing 50 samples for the audience.
The girls are confident they will do well and deliver a hit at the Gridiron Challenge. The delicious kind.
âWe have been working hard,â Madison said. âIt will be good.â