Prattville High School security guard honored for helping students, families

At Prattville High School, Shadel Johnson is more than a security guard. For 21 years, she has been one of the people students, parents and staff can count on for calm, care and a watchful eye at 1315 Upper Kingston Road in Prattville.

Johnson’s work reaches well beyond the doors of the school. She gives snack money to children who do not have any, listens when students need support and cooks for families facing hard times. Charlena Drayton, who nominated her for WAKA’s Pay It Forward feature, called Johnson “a pillar in our community” and “a mother figure for all of these kids here.” Drayton also said Johnson uses her own hard-earned funds to feed the less fortunate and “would give you the shirt off [her] back.”

The recognition came with $333 from Stewart Vance with the Vance Law Firm, the standard weekly award in WAKA’s Pay It Forward program. Johnson said she plans to keep helping others with it, including another grocery run for people who depend on her at Easter.

The job is personal for Johnson. She works at the same school where her mother once retired, and Johnson said her mother’s example shaped the way she treats people. She said she wants others to be happy and fed, especially during the holidays, and that the caring habits she shows every day came from home.

That kind of steady presence matters at Prattville High and across Autauga County Schools, which serves roughly 9,000 students on 14 campuses. The district says it provides breakfast and lunch at no charge to all students for the 2024-2025 school year under the Community Eligibility Provision, with no application required. Even so, hunger remains part of daily life in Alabama, where the Alabama Department of Public Health says 23% of children face food insecurity and Alabama Arise says 46% of students are eligible for free school meals.

The need reaches beyond school walls, too. The Heart of Alabama Food Bank has said a Prattville-area mobile pantry could serve 300 families and provide about 20,000 meals. In that larger picture, Johnson’s work fills a gap that official programs cannot always cover, offering not just security at Prattville High, but the kind of attention that helps a school feel human.

For students who know her as a mother figure, for staff who rely on her, and for families who have felt her help when money or groceries ran short, Johnson has become part of the school’s safety net. In a district where the Prattville Lions represent the high school, her presence has come to mean something just as important: someone is paying attention.