In the spotlight: Tracey Wiltsie

Schools are meant to be a safe haven for learning and growth for children. However, it’s no secret that in today’s world, safety concerns have become a major priority for schools. School safety monitors have become an essential part of providing a secure environment for students, teachers, and staff alike.

Safety monitor Tracey Wiltsie takes her responsibilities to the students and staff at Woodhaven High School very seriously. Tracey’s main responsibility is to ensure the safety of student staff and visitors to the school. She plays a vital role in maintaining a safe and secure environment where students can learn and thrive. As a school safety monitor her primary responsibility is to monitor the entering and leaving of individuals. She is trained to identify and report anything important to her safety. “My responsibilities are to help keep the staff and students safe in the school. That means keeping eyes and ears in the halls and checking doors and reporting any concern which I have to the administration.” Wiltsie’s dream job was law enforcement, so her work with school safety is a natural fit.

Sometimes it takes time to adjust to a new working environment and deal with people and coworkers, but Tracey Wiltsie is the part of the WHS community for five years now and says of her experience here, “It was very easy to adjust to new coworkers and the new environment, everyone was here is welcoming and very helpful showing me the ins and outs of the job of being a safety monitor.”

Wiltse’s favorite part of her job is working with students, getting to know them more, and building strong relationships where kids know they can trust her and talk to her about anything. She enjoys the small connections and works extra hard to get her steps in each day. She thinks that the student will be surprised to find out that her daughter is now nineteen years old and that she has already graduated from high school and not many people know that. She also enjoys having summer off and spending some time with her friends and family, and her hobbies are kayaking and traveling and she especially likes to travel during the summertime. Wiltsie plans to stay at WHS for the long haul until retirement, and she then wants to enjoy that retirement traveling through Europe.

But as a school safety monitor, her first priority is keeping her school safe by monitoring the entrance, patrolling the school, checking visitors, responding to emergencies, reporting and suspicious activities. Wiltsie feels she has learned a lot in her time as a safety monitor at WHS. “The job has changed me by teaching me to manage the situation (and the unexpected), so you have to learn to roll with that.” Wiltsie’s kindness and friendly disposition show that you can always have safety with a smile.