What The Bell?

New Roads’ most familiar security guard is a work of Art.

All of us know who Art Bell is. The veteran member of our school’s security force is always standing at the back gate, greeting us as we come in every morning, and keeping students, parents, and teachers safe as they cross the street. But how much do we really know about him?

Bell’s job is to keep students, teachers, visitors, and everyone else on campus safe, which includes making sure nobody who isn’t supposed to be off campus stays on campus, and making sure people who are allowed off campus follow the rules of the off-campus policy. “It doesn’t affect my job very much, the policies that let students leave campus for lunch. They sign in and they sign out, and we have a new scanner, which can tell us whether the student has off-campus privileges. If there’s a problem, we send the student to Kenya and she usually deals with it, and she’s great. She can find out if they are allowed off-campus, and if they are, we make a note in the system. If not, we have to make sure that we remember that.” Bell said.

Bell worked at the New Roads elementary school for ten years before joining the security team at the Upper School. In total, he has worked at New Roads for sixteen years. That’s longer than most students here have been alive, and certainly longer than almost all them have been at the school. He has memories of many now-upper-classmen, while they were elementary schoolers, including one about The Jaguardian’s current co-editor-in-chief, Katie Contreras. “I was coaching elementary basketball. Katie, she’s a senior now, we had a game at the boy’s and girl’s club, she got the rebound, and went to the wrong basket. That’s probably one of my favorite memories,” Bell said.

Bell works at a high school now, but what was his high school experience like? Turns out, he was always a sports kid. “I did a lot of sports in high school. I played football, baseball, and basketball in 1981, a while back. I had a good time, it was nice. I was definitely a big sports kid. It kept me out of trouble. You see, I grew up in South Central, so it helped to have sports to keep me from doing anything too bad,” Bell said.

Bell moved to Los Angeles in 1968, like so many other Black Americans during the Great Migration. “I was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, and I came out here when I was five. So pretty much, LA’s been my home town,” Bell said.

(Photo courtesy of Art Bell)

Bell as a 9th grader, suited up for a park league football game.

Not known to many is that Bell is an avid skier, despite having (almost) always lived in Los Angeles, which he said is something not many people at New Roads know about him. This athletic pursuit is all part of his love of sports. He loves attending sporting events with his family, and is a huge fan of local football teams. “My favorite thing to do at home is watch football, things like that. Go to USC games, and the Rams’ games,” Bell said. When the family of a student invited Bell and his family to a Rams’ Game in 2021, Bell immediately accepted the offer. “It was a great experience,” he said. He also attended the USC game in Las Vegas last year. “As a family thing. They lost, and I was bummed out, but it was fun,” Bell said. 

(Photo courtesy of Art Bell)

Bell in 2021, Go Rams!

So, what does an avid skier who takes long walks and loves the Rams look forward to every day on campus? Bell’s answer is fairly straightforward: “Safety…that’s what I look forward to every day, safety. I patrol around campus, I get my 10,000 steps in,” Bell added with a laugh. “I get here, I make sure nobody’s, you know, jumping the gates, and just trying to keep everybody safe, you know. With all the stuff going on in the world these days, it’s important to make sure everything is going OK.”