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Security specialist moves to south Seattle school
JJ shares his love for working with students
Security Specialist JJ converses with senior Tucker Anderson (left), junior Abdelfatah Ibrahim (middle) and senior Sam Airhart (right) on his last day in the commons.
November 7, 2022
After his second year back, security specialist Jacques (JJ) Johnson made the final decision to leave Ballard to work in south Seattle, closer to his home.
Throughout his life, Johnson has worked several different professions, such as being a school bus driver and teaching students martial arts.
“I’m a performer of music and dance, [and] I used to teach dance classes,” Johnson said. “I have a love for the arts [and] for the entertainment field.”
Working at Ballard proved to be a challenge in multiple ways. From 2008-2012, Johnson had a hard time balancing work life with obstacles in his personal life.
“I was a caregiver for my grandmother [who passed in 2018],” Johnson said. “It’s hard when you’re caregiving for an older family member and you live on the opposite side of town. [There could be] some type of emergency call that comes in, so you’ll have to try to rush from [one] side of town to get back to the other.”
Johnson is now the primary caretaker of his mother and can be more attentive to her needs working at a school closer to his home.
Johnson’s work with helping students runs deeper than being security.
“My work with youth outreach and gang intervention was [at] a time when the gangs were really prevalent here in Seattle, and there were a lot of drive-by shootings and violence going on,” Johnson said. “My jobs were to try to provide mentoring and youth outreach to try to get [troubled students] to turn their life around.”
He mentioned the difficulty of getting kids to change their unsafe lifestyles when family members they look up to are involved in gangs.
“There’s some students who have a strong enough will that will sometimes say, ‘this is not what I want to be involved with … I don’t want to do that’,” Johnson said. “They’re crying out for help. That’s when we try to help them out.”
While he’s had a positive experience working at BHS, Johnson explained a tough part of his job.
“It’s a hard balance to do this job and also try to be liked and build a relationship with students,” Johnson said. “Students want to do things but then as soon as they get in trouble, they get mad at us because they got caught.”
In the end, however, Johnson shares a meaningful interaction he’s had with a graduate.
“They say ‘we understand why, and we appreciate you because that just shows that you really cared about us’,” Johnson said. “And that’s like the greatest gift right there, when they come back and say that and don’t hold a grudge.”