PORT ORANGE — Like many who followed the story on TV or internet, Gregg Bastian, a Volusia County school guardian, was awed by the story of Kirk Moore.
On April 7, the principal of Pauls Valley High School in Oklahoma tackled a would-be shooter in the lobby, saving lives. Bastian’s reaction: “Pretty brave.” Ten days later, Moore’s students voted him prom king.
Just as Moore was able to subdue a potential killer, Florida lawmakers had a similar goal in the weeks following the Feb. 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. The Legislature required public school districts to hire guardians, people with military or public-safety backgrounds with the ability to protect schools, including with guns.
Bastian was among the first to raise their hands to be a guardian, starting at Spruce Creek Elementary School in August 2018. Four years earlier, he had retired after 26 years with the Port Orange Fire Department and had been running “grandpa day care.” With an eye toward where his granddaughters were headed, school, Parkland left him with a sense of fear. Becoming a guardian was his next move.
And while Bastian has never confronted a mass shooter, he has had to contemplate what he would do if faced with that situation.
“I know what I’m going to do when I get there,” Bastian told The News-Journal in an April 20 interview at Spruce Creek Elementary.
In the film, he makes it clear he has made peace with giving up his life for the lives of children.
Bastian — who’s known to students, parents and staff as “Mr. B” — may not be voted prom king. But in the meantime, he has earned a starring role in a new documentary film.
Former Port Orange firefighters collaborated on ‘The Guardian’
“The Guardian,” a 17-minute documentary short, will make its public premiere on May 3, the final day of the Sunscreen Film Festival in St. Petersburg.
The film is a collaboration between two old firefighter buddies. Bastian served with director Chris Ballinger in the Port Orange Fire Department, and they’ve stayed in touch.
Ballinger, an actor who has appeared in the USA Network show “Burn Notice,” left the fire department and now works for an airline. In his off hours, he pursues his passion: filmmaking. He has written and directed several short films.
A couple of years ago, Ballinger caught up with Bastian, and was intrigued with his guardian job. Not just the gun-on-campus aspect, but learning about how Bastian had befriended some of the students. One stood out.
Brode Melnicoff, who has autism, first met Bastian when he was in fourth grade. Brode’s mother Tina says in the film her son became “fascinated” with Mr. B.
“He loved the fact that he carried a walkie-talkie. He loved his uniform. He would always talk about Mr. B,” Tina Melnicoff said. “And he wanted to be just like Mr. B.”
But Brode had an attendance problem. Mr. B came up with an incentive: Go to school, and he could earn a guardian shirt.
“I went to school every day,” Brode said in the film.
Brode is now a student at Spruce Creek High School and is working on his next incentive, a pair of guardian shorts.
Ballinger heard about the relationship between Brode and Mr. B, and envisioned it as film-worthy.
“His greatest accomplishments have been helping with students in different ways other than trying to stop an active-shooter situation,” Ballinger said. “I wanted to show that the guardians are more than just, you know, armed people in the schools trying to stop the active shooter.”
Film gets red-carpet treatment at Spruce Creek Elementary
Ballinger showed “The Guardian” to the Spruce Creek community in the all-purpose room last October. Bastian estimated more than 200 people attended.
“Everybody got dressed up, and we literally had red carpets and velvet ropes and made a big to-do about it,” Bastian said.
Students, parents, administrators and Bastian’s family all attended.
When she watched it, Andrea Hall, principal at Spruce Creek Elementary, said she shed a tear or two, as did some of Bastian’s firefighting buddies.
“Chris Ballinger did a great job of highlighting the emotional connections of the job, side by side with the importance of the work that they do,” Hall said.
Ballinger’s strategy for releasing the film has involved getting it into the festival circuit. The Sunscreen Film Festival has named “The Guardian” a nominee for best Florida film, with the winner to be announced May 2.
He is working on making the independent film more widely available.
Additionally, Ballinger wrote and published a children’s book, “Gregg the Guardian,” a fictional adaptation of the relationship between Bastian and Brode, about safety, inclusion and relationship-building.
How should school guardians do their jobs?
Bastian’s first few weeks as a school guardian were profiled in a 2018 News-Journal story, which noted he walks about 15,000 steps a day and described his day this way:
“He opens the gates in the morning to let students and parents in, supervises drop-off, closes the gates again, walks around the perimeter of campus, checks doors to make sure they’re locked, does vehicle checks in the parking lot and monitors two separate radios. He makes a point to be in the cafeteria during lunch time, when he opens milk cartons, yogurts and string cheese for students, and outside at recess, when he plays basketball with them. At the end of the day, he facilitates the parent pick-up process and locks the gates.”
When he was first hired, Bastian recounted Greg Akin, Volusia County Schools’ chief operating officer at the time, weighing in on the job responsibilities.
“He stressed a big part of this job that he considered the most important was the relationship building, and I ran with that,” Bastian said.
After starting, he found not everybody was warm to the guardian program.
“There were staff that were not cool … with a gun on campus at all, not just me. I did win those people over. So that was part of the relationship building,” Bastian said.
Bastian set about greeting students, parents, and staff every morning, and said every year, he develops special relationships with at least one or two students, trying to make them feel comfortable and incentivize their efforts.
Assurance ‘in a world that feels less safe’
Bastian is 63. When he first took the guardian job, he said he intended to work for seven years.
That would allow him to follow the first class of pre-K children all the way through 5th grade. Just eight students completed those first seven years with Bastian.
“I had coins made for them to commemorate that,” he said.
Then Bastian stayed on for an eighth year, and said he intends to return in 2026-27, as well.
“I love this school. I have fun every day,” he said. “I’ve been blessed that I had two careers that don’t really seem like work. It just comes natural to me.”
He also feels like part of a team, much like he did in the fire department.
Hall, who has been principal at the school for nearly 10 years, said Bastian has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.
“Mr. B represents the epitome of what the guardian program should be. Safety first and foremost,” she said. “And I always say he’s a kind man … but don’t ever mistake his kindness for weakness.”
Bastian possesses a keen eye toward detail and knack for being in the right place at the right time, Hall said, but he balances that with excellence at building relationships.
“He brings a presence onto campus that makes every child and every adult here feel safe in a world that feels less safe by the day,” she said. “He is a blessing to our campus for sure. I think he is the best of the best.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Florida film introduces Port Orange school guardian, Mr. B
Reporting by Mark Harper, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
