After a long day at school, senior Nicholas Miles slowly hobbles across the parking lot, dreading the news that awaits him at the hospital. Miles had already torn his ACL before, and while playing soccer, he knew without a doubt he had torn it again. As he prepared to accept his fate, he heard a familiar voice call out to him.

“I was all sad while walking out to my car when he saw me and said, ‘Hey, how’s the knee?’” Miles said. “I had to put on a smile because I knew that I couldn’t be sad in front of Mr. V.”

John Villano, or Mr. V, as the students on campus recognize him as, takes the role of a campus monitor, but according to Miles, he’s way more than that.

“Mr. V is like the light at the end of the tunnel,” Miles said. “He drops inspirational quote after inspirational quote and inspires us every day.”

The role of a campus monitor is to patrol and observe the entire campus during school operating hours, reporting all disturbances to administration. For Villano, this looks like making rounds on campus aboard his golf cart.

“Out here I never get bored because I’m always taking my job very seriously,” Villano said. “Anyone that comes on or near this campus I’m watching, and I have a plan of action if something goes down.”

The position is critical to a functioning campus, and with school threats arising across the United States, Villano’s role becomes even more vital. Resource Officer Valerie Butler, who is responsible for the safety of the students on campus, said she values him greatly.

“His role is basically like my second set of eyes and hands out there,” Butler said. “He’s constantly making rounds and checking everything, because during the day, people are coming in and out of gates, so he’s making sure that they’re secure.”

The campus monitor position that Villano holds is not his first foray into the realm of security. After graduating from Florida State University with a degree in criminology, he became a probation officer for the state of Florida through the Department of Corrections.

“For the first 10 years of my career I was a normal probation officer, which ended up being not so normal,” Villano said. “I ended up getting all the high risk cases, so if you were [charged] for murder, armed robbery, threatening other officers, or just being a total pain, they gave you to me.”

On the surface, the job of a probation officer is to simply supervise and monitor those convicted of various crimes, however Villano said his job meant more to him.

“I knew some guys who weren’t angels, and they were on and off probation and in and out of trouble a lot,” Villano said. “People had a lot of complaints about probation officers. Now, some of them were probably exaggerated, but they are probably half-truths to it.”

Witnessing these friends stuck in the system, Villano said he wanted to change the narrative.

“You know the old saying: once you get in the system, you can’t get out,” Villano said.  “It’s kind of true in some senses, so let’s stop that system right there. You’ve got a drug problem? Let’s help you.”

Continuing on his quest to help others, Villano transferred from the traditional probation officer position, to a new system called pre-trial intervention (PTI).  PTI is similar to traditional parole, however once the parolee completes the program, their record is wiped clean of those charges. Villano said his day to day tasks were similar, however he was now able to change lives for the better.

“At any time I had 150 to 175 cases, and I cared about each and every one of them,” Villano said. “That’s what intrigued me, I could be right in the middle of the whole thing and be very involved with it, and I could probably help people.”

After 32 years of working in the corrections department, Villano made the decision to retire.

“I did 32 years, and I could have probably done another 32 years,” Villano said. “But it was just time to retire, and after a certain point, I wanted to do something different.”

After one year of retirement consisting of his favorite hobbies such as activities with family, fishing, and golfing, Villano said he was ready to do something different.

“I didn’t want to just do one thing,” Villano said. “I wasn’t ready to say, ‘This is my life story.’”

After West Shore received the funding to hire a campus monitor, Butler said she was very glad to hire someone with probation officer experience.

“He seemed like the perfect fit.” Butler said. “He’s not afraid to intervene in the action, engage with people and have confrontations if needed. So that was a good quality that he was already trained to do.”

While Butler said Villano was the ideal candidate when it comes to fulfilling the duties of a campus monitor, she would have never thought of the impact he’s made.

“He’s here every day no matter what,” Butler said. “He’s funny, always positive, and even likes to engage with the kids more than the staff sometimes.”

Just like each and every one of his cases, Villano said he cares about all of the students.

“I put the same degree of careness and seriousness, watching everything here,” Villano said. “Yeah, it’s a whole different scene, but I do it here. I care about you guys the same way.”

When it comes to the most important aspects of being a parole officer that became a campus monitor, Villano said he operates off of two primary principals.

“I treat everybody with fairness and dignity,” Villano said. “Don’t ever judge anybody. Everybody has their own path and there’s no right or wrong.”

When it comes to all the people he helped through parole and pretrial intervention, Villano said he would have never thought the positive feedback would mean as much as it has.

“I was never doing it so I could get this great self feeling,” Villano said. “I did it because I wanted to do it, because my heart was in helping people.”

While common sayings such as ‘good morning’, and ‘how’s it going’ may fly past most people’s heads, Miles said they mean the world to him.

“Sometimes, the most ordinary question—‘How are you?’—becomes extraordinary when it comes from someone who you know truly cares what your response will be,” Miles said.

On Wednesday, Sept. 25, students came to school dressed as their ‘hometown hero’ for spirit week. Arriving at Mr. V’s typical morning post, were waves of students displaying their hero, dressed in his iconic outfit consisting of a West Shore button up topped with a straw hat. Villano said he would have never known how much it would mean to him.

“You can’t put a price tag on it,” Villano said. “And that was never about the money.”

This story was originally published on The Roar on October 30, 2024.