De Andre Horn is a new security guard here at Proviso East. Horn has been a security guard at Proviso East for over seven months now and is known for his nice way of keeping the hallway positive.

He has taught at other places and worked with many other kids. When younger, he worked for Windy City Combat Sports. “My job was to teach self-defense, mixed martial arts, and things like that to women, children and adults.”

Students here at Proviso can be very hard to deal with. As Horn said, “Everybody has different personalities; different race, cultures, and so…we have to learn how to adapt to each and every personality…, each culture, religious view, thoughts, and ideas.”

For somebody like Horn who works hard to get along with students, it can be difficult to break up a fight that involves someone he likes. Horn stated, “I have to break it up. I have to do the part that is my job. An incident happened here with a student that I like and talk to. I actually … had to physically restrain him.”

“But as soon as the situation was over, I actually sat him down in a chair and apologized to him…. It’s my job to make him understand the reasoning of “Why”. But in the end, although I had to physically restrain him and he is a student that I like…, I gave him words of encouragement.”

Did Horn see any good coming out of that? Horn thinks so. “That student walks around now and says, ‘Hey…Hi,’ and there’s no ill will between us,” said Horn. “The good thing is after that moment when I explained myself, he understood. So he had to look at it from my point of view as well.”

Horn believes that security guards play a role in helping teachers be successful. “The relationship between teacher and security is something that is very important because a lot of times the teachers do not want to get the students in trouble…. We serve as a medium because we can kind of step in and talk to the student before things go to the next level.”

Horn’s experience with kids over the years has made him more successful here at Proviso East.