A few months ago, Quintana was a delivery driver for FedEx. Now he helps provide security at Milagro and supervises two other safety aides in a new program that will largely replace Santa Fe Public Schools’ reliance on security contracts for school guards. District Security Director Mario Salbidrez hopes the initiative will cut costs, improve security staff retention and create a stronger and more personalized safety system in local public schools.

The new aides are being supervised by retired Santa Fe police Detective Brian Rodriguez, who was hired by the district this year. There are no armed aides or school resource officers on district campuses, and Salbidrez said there are no plans to change that.

The new safety effort comes amid a rise in behavioral problems — including drug use and gun violence — both on campuses and in surrounding neighborhoods.

“We have a bad epidemic of fentanyl coming through,” Salbidrez said. “That brought a lot of problems into schools.”

Some of the issues the district faces are severe.

In October, a shooting near Capital High School involving one teenager and two young adults led to a lockdown. The boy accused in the shooting was one of more than a dozen Santa Fe-area teens arrested on suspicion of gun-related offenses in 2021.

Last month, police were called to Santa Fe High to investigate concerns of a possible sexual assault. A heavily redacted police report said students told officers boys and girls had been drinking alcohol in a bathroom, and one girl might have been groped by several boys. Police have confiscated three cellphones from male students, the report said.

The district has declined to comment on the incident.

Salbidrez called a meeting of law enforcement officers and others in January at Capital High to discuss youth violence and other crimes.

The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office also is taking steps to address gang activity and violence near both of the city’s large public high schools. The office is launching a pilot program called The Life Project aimed at educating high schoolers about the criminal justice system.

Santa Fe Public Schools’ safety aide program is the brainchild of Salbidrez, a former Santa Fe police deputy chief who joined the district in 2018. He said he has wanted to move away from contracted security guards since before the start of the pandemic. The effort could save the district as much as $40,000 a year, he added.

The number of security guards provided by contractor Allied Universal has declined to four from 24 as the safety aide program moves forward. The district won’t sever ties with the company, Salbidrez said, because Allied is able to provide staff for after-hours patrols.

In recent years, the company has struggled to fully staff security guard positions for the district.

When Quintana stepped into his job, he said, students were “running circles around” the lone guard patrolling the halls at Milagro.

But the safety aide program also has vacancies. Recently, Salbidrez said eight of the 24 positions were still open.

While much of Quintana’s job involves preventing students from skipping class, at least once or twice a week he or another aide gets called into a classroom to escort a student to the office due to a class disruption.

Safety aides also watch for signs of fights.

“Usually once they see the extra presence of all the staff around, it kind of fizzles away,” Quintana said.

Milagro Vice Principal Susan Greig said in written comments to the school board in February the safety aides “are a support and resource I cannot do without on a daily basis.”

Salbidrez said there are many advantages to training safety personnel in-house. The district has developed several trainings for new employees that include how to respond to opioid overdoses and address children with autism.

He also hopes students will feel more comfortable disclosing troubles at home to safety aides, who can “facilitate a soft handoff” to other district employees, he said.

Signs of the safety aide program’s success will include better retention of workers and fewer disruptions in schools, he added.

Serenity Lucero, a parent of students at Nina Otero Community School, said she was excited to hear about the program. Two of her daughters have experienced bullying and harassment on school grounds and on social media this year, she said, which never happened previously.

Lucero said she recently filed a police report over an incident, but no progress has been made on the case.

“I hope they just continue to make the safety for students a priority,” she said. “It hasn’t felt like it’s been a priority in so long.”