West Jefferson Hills School District welcomes new director of security

Kenneth Ranalli, a former Pennsylvania State Police sergeant, was retired for nine days last month before he jumped back into law enforcement.

This time around, his post is Thomas Jefferson High School.

Ranalli joins the West Jefferson Hills School District’s police force as its director of security. He was hired unanimously during the school board’s Aug. 25 meeting. His salary is $65,000.

Just a month into his job, Ranalli said he has a lot to learn.

“I’ve never been a school police officer,” he said. “Our function is a little different. Our focus isn’t to arrest kids.”

Instead, his focus is to keep young people from ever getting arrested and “put into the system.”

He plans on doing this by building relationships with students, parents and the community. He hopes his and his colleagues’ presence in the schools will reshape a narrative that has cast police officers in a bad light.

“There are bad apples,” Ranalli said of police officers. “But the vast majority of us are out there doing a hard job and doing it well.”

Ranalli served with the state police for 26 years before being hired by the school district. During that time, he said he visited local schools in the area as often as he could.

“I enjoyed it. It’s actually what led me to want to be a school police officer,” he said, adding he led demonstrations with his police dog, assisted with school-led drug searches, bomb threats and spoke at various schools about being a police officer.

As retirement neared, he began searching for openings as a police officer for large school districts in the area. He aimed for diverse school districts, saying he has a heart for reaching people of different ethnicities.

Thomas Jefferson High School is 92% white out of 923 students, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Future Ready Index. Other races represented include 3.6% Asian, 2.2% Black, 1.6% Hispanic and 0.8% with two or more races.

Ranalli said the district’s force includes five officers, including himself. He and another officer are posted at the high school. Two other security guards, who are unarmed and not employed by the school district, also serve at the high school.

The five officers employed by the district are armed.

The other three district officers are posted at Gill Hall Elementary, Jefferson Hills Intermediate School and McClellan Elementary.

A sixth officer, Ronald Porupsky of the Pleasant Hills Borough Police Department, also serves at Pleasant Hills Middle School as its school resource officer.

The school district launched its police force in 2017, when the board created two positions. It received a total of $60,000 in state grants during the first two years of its existence, allowing the district to expand the force to five officers.

James Modrak served the district as its director of security since September 2017. He retired over the summer, creating the open position for Ranalli.

Michael Ghilani, the district’s superintendent, said he is excited to work with Ranalli.

“Officer Ranalli brings a wealth of leadership experience and law enforcement expertise,” he wrote in an email. “But most importantly, he has a history of being a police officer who focuses on relationships. We look forward to his team approach to working with our students and the community to build strong relationships.”