Beaufort Co. school security firm fired after second gun found Tuesday in staff restroom

The Beaufort County School District has fired the company that provided security in the schools after a guard left a gun unattended in an elementary school staff restroom Tuesday on Hilton Head.

It marked the second such incident this year involving the company, GuardOne Security, and a guard leaving a gun in a school restroom.

A guard left a gun unattended in a staff bathroom at at Hilton Head Island School for Creative Arts and Daufuskie Island School, according to Maj. Angela Viens with the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office.

“As such, the Board of Education authorized the superintendent to immediately terminate the armed security guard services contract with Security Solutions of America” at its meeting Tuesday night, said Candace Bruder, a spokeswoman for the school district.

The first incident took place Feb. 1 at Mossy Oaks Elementary School. In that instance, a loaded 9mm gun was left unattended for three minutes in an unlocked staff bathroom. The weapon was found by a teacher who reported it to the principal. At that time, the community was “outraged,” School Board member Richard Geier later said at a February school board meeting.

“You’ve got one strike, don’t have anymore,” Geier said. “You’re on notice.”

The guard was not allowed on school property following that incident. When representatives from the company came to the February school board meeting to discuss what had happened, they said they had “taken steps to include that in our training” and had “revised” testing during training to prevent anything like that from happening again.

More details about Tuesday’s incident were not immediately available, but no student came in contact with the gun, Viens said.

A spokesman for GuardOne Security, a division of S&S Management, could not immediately be reached for comment.

The almost $1 million contract with S&S Management was approved in September 2021 for 18 guards for the district’s elementary schools and early childhood centers. Every middle and high school within the district has its own School Resource Officer through local law enforcement.

Before the school district hired the security company, five community resource officers were shared by the elementary schools and the county’s private schools. Red Cedar Elementary School and Port Royal Elementary School each got their own School Resource Officer in the 2019-20 school year, according to previous reporting in the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.

The school district will be transitioning “swiftly” to a new security company, Bruder said. In the meantime, local police will be at the elementary schools for “routine visits.” Community Service officers will also be at the schools for check-ins.

“We expect to be fully staffed in short order,” Bruder said.