GISD’s new security chief has assembled a team that has military, law enforcement creds

Wade Clark’s 24 years of active-duty military service involving experience with rapid response and close quarters battle made him rise to the top among applicants vying to be Granbury ISD’s director of security.

But there is another reason why he feels “imminently qualified” for the job.

During the four years he taught small engine repair at Granbury High School, students — even some who were not in his class — came to him to report security concerns, sometimes interrupting his class to do it.

He’s not sure why kids feel drawn to him, but he figures they might sense his genuine affection and concern for them.

“When you come to the door, I want to give you that fist bump and that high five,” Clark said of his teaching days. “I want to tell you good job, I saw you score 14 points at the game last night. What that turns into is, people want to talk to you and open up to you and tell you about their problems. If you can help a kid, that’s awesome. And if you can be approachable, if that kid will tell you things that they might not tell other adults about security things, then that’s beneficial. That’s fantastic.”

Clark, the husband of longtime GISD employee and current Assistant Superintendent Tammy Clark, expressed confidence that he has a qualified, well-trained team that will keep campuses safe. All of them have either military or law enforcement experience, and some, like Clark’s newly hired assistant Jon Mueller, have both.

Mueller has 25 years of law enforcement experience and an additional six years of experience working law enforcement on school campuses.

In addition to security guards, GISD’s security team includes more than 30 school marshals who have been certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, Clark said. Some wear uniforms, some dress in plainclothes.

And there is an added factor.

Not only are Clark’s team members well trained, but they are also parents who themselves have children in the school district or children who once attended schools in the district.

These parents will protect their own kids, and Clark feels confident that they will not hesitate to protect other people’s children as well. 

SECURED ‘UNITS’

Clark replaces Jeff Hastings, who accepted a job with the Hood County Sheriff’s Office earlier this summer.

He said that during his four years as a teacher at GHS, he worked with security in an advisory capacity and would often spend his conference period in Hastings’ office, at Hastings’ request, talking about training options and other security-related topics.

“So, I was already plugged in,” said Clark, who is 53.

When Hastings resigned, Clark said that people phoned him to ask if he intended to apply for the security director position.

“The more I thought about it and the more I prayed about it, the more I felt called to do it,” Clark said. “So, I dusted off my resume.”

A five-member panel unanimously agreed that Clark was the man for the job.

“Since then, I have been busy building a team,” Clark said, adding that he ran all applications “through a filter of prior military and prior law enforcement experience.”

He stated, “So, everybody that I have hired and put on the team is going to be somebody who is a seasoned and experienced professional in those worlds.”

Superintendent Jeremy Glenn said that Clark was among eight applicants for the position. He noted that he brings “24 years of military experience including security, leadership and supervisory capability.”

One of the first things that Clark tackled was an audit of exterior doors at GISD campuses.

Those doors are always locked, he said, and if there is a reason to open one, an electronic system notifies security if it stays open longer than a brief period of time.

GISD has had a single point of entry at campuses for several years, although GHS has two: one at the main doors, and the other at the Career and Technical Education wing.

Visitors cannot simply walk into a school building. They must be buzzed in by a staffer. The staffer is able to observe their appearance and demeanor and communicate with them through an intercom.

Once inside an office area, visitors cannot walk unchecked into the main campus building. They have to be buzzed through another set of doors. Before that happens, they must show identification and their ID is used to run a background check.

According to Clark, the person that the visitor is there to see is summoned to walk them to their intended destination within the building.

“Our primary philosophy is to prevent anybody from entering our building that shouldn’t be there so that we don’t ever have to get to a response situation,” said Clark, who has been a firearms instructor and has a Federal Firearms License. “If you can keep them from ever getting in, then you don’t have to ever get to that layer of response. That is what our philosophy is – to defend that unit.”

Clark will continue to be based at the high school.

That campus has the highest number of students, he said, “and, statistically, it has the highest probability of having some kind of an altercation. And so, me being close by will be important.”

However, Clark said he does intend to make regular visits to other campuses, where he will walk the hallways with security personnel and talk with them about their day-to-day operations.

He feels comfortable doing so since Mueller, his “really seasoned, really experienced assistant,” will be on site at the high school. 

A HEART FOR KIDS

The Clarks have two children of their own – a son and a daughter.

J.W. lives and works in Hood County.

Cheyenne teaches school in Boerne. She got married in July and graduated last week from Texas Tech University with a master’s degree in educational leadership.

The couple are also the proud parents of Madison, a former student of Clark’s. They adopted her.

That chapter of Clark’s life began several years ago when he noticed a girl in one of his classes who did not appear to be particularly happy or engaged.

“But really quickly we connected, and I was making progress with her,” Clark said. “She went from being this real standoffish kid in the back of the room that didn’t want anything to do with anybody to moving herself to the front of the room and coming in excited and high-fiving me and saying, ‘Oh, I just love this class’ and ‘I wish I could have this period all day.’ She just really made a huge transition in such a short amount of time.”

But then, one day, she was gone.

Clark didn’t think much of it at first, assuming that Madison wasn’t feeling well. But then Clark found out that she was in the foster care system and was leaving the school district to be placed in yet another foster home.

Upset, he called his wife, who at that time was principal at Granbury Middle School. He asked if she could find out what was going on. Tammy contacted CPS.

She was told that due to an issue that had arisen with Madison’s foster parent, she had been moved to a different foster home. It was in Fort Worth and there were seven other kids there. Madison was going to be enrolled in a school in Crowley.

The Clarks began helping CPS search for a foster home in Hood County so that Madison could come back to the school where she had been thriving. They asked the caseworker to keep them informed.

One Monday when there was a school holiday, the Clarks received a phone call from the caseworker while they were at their deer lease. The caseworker told them that she had just visited a potential foster home but “could not in good conscience” place Madison there.

The only hope Madison seemed to have for coming back to Granbury was if the Clarks offered to be her foster parents.

The couple asked the caseworker if they could take Madison to dinner to discuss it. They wanted her to make the decision since they intended to have rules and expectations and teenagers don’t always want accountability.

The caseworker arranged for the Clarks to drive to Fort Worth to take Madison to dinner.

“We had the conversation, and she was so excited,” Clark said. “I remember at one point she was getting kind of teary.”

Madison told them, “I can’t believe that people like you would want me.”

CPS made a home visit the next day, Clark said, and Madison was brought to them that night. The next morning, they re-enrolled her in Granbury ISD and she was once again a student in Clark’s small engine repair class.

“She was never disinterested or disconnected again after that,” Clark said. “She started thriving everywhere. The entire two years of high school that we had her she had straight A’s. She started participating in sports. She lettered in powerlifting.”

Clark continued, “Now she’s at Tarleton and she was on the Dean’s List. She’s getting a double major in math and education because she wants to be a teacher.”

The adoptive dad said that Tarleton officials asked Madison why she wanted to be a teacher.

“Because my family are all teachers,” she replied. “And they make a difference.”