How many of you teach alone? This morning a mother dropping off her son noticed a hooded guy hanging around my car. She waited till all the youth were in the building and then her husband came and hung around until I cleaned up and left the building.
We have 4 teachers from 2 wards in our building and the wards take turn providing priesthood brethren each morning for security. 1 guy each day. They switch off wards each month.
One of the boys I give a ride to hasn't been locking my car doors. So that guy could have potentially made off with a GPS, Kindle and phone. He'll be locking it now, and we may even lock the door to the church after everyone is there. I know the priesthood used to come when our "resident homeless person" was around the last time they had a female teacher.
If you have security concerns, talk to your stake coordinator. We have two teachers in our stake who are teaching in a building alone - both often bring a husband along. One of them was JUST given a team-teaching partner this passed Sunday ... and her partner's hubby is a bishop who frequents the building.
I'll check on that church policy bit - I think it is kind of a folklore issue (we're pretty good at following the book, and we don't go out of our way to have a Melchizadek p'hood holder in our buildings for all activities...). We have one building with three sisters teaching different classes at once; no p'hood holders. One of the sisters is our stake president's wife....
I used to teach at church alone last year, but we never had a problem. (There was another teacher last year, but she wasn't able to teach often due to her work schedule. She was only there when she taught. My first year I taught, my co-teacher was a priesthood holder and he was there most of the time with me.) I teach at home now (and still no Melchizedek priesthood holder because my husband has already left for work way before the students get to my house). As far as priesthood brethren...well, most brethren in our ward are on their way to work, getting up and dealing with their own families, so we didn't have that either. But we had a room full of priesthood brethren...the young men in our seminary class. ;)
We live in a pretty calm little town, so I'm not really worried about security (just gotta lock car doors to help others resist temptation) but it is kinda spooky when it's so dark in the morning.
Right now I teach with a called Seminary Principal in the building, but in years past in another stake I taught without any priesthood leaders in the building. A priesthood leader should be there, not just for protection but because it is church policy!
We always have priesthood - it's an assignment for the yep wards in the building to switch off every month. They come and unlock before I get there and stay until class is over. Check with your supervisor or bishop.
Handbook 2, section 21.2 discusses use of a building. There is no requirement listed for a priesthood holder to be at a building for all functions ... but there is more detail in Handbook 1 (which only bishops and stake presidents have direct access to locally).
THE NOTION A P'HOOD LEADER MUST BE AT THE BUILDING PER CHURCH POLICY IS NOT ACCURATE, according to a careful reading of Handbook 2.
All that aside, if you do have a worry about security at the building in which you teach, reach out to your stake seminary coordinator. Hopefully they will reach out to the appropriate high councilor and/or stake presidency member, who can then determine the most appropriate course of action (which could include, but is not limited to, counseling with the building's agent bishop for a solution; calling a "seminary principal" to hang out at the building during class times, determine a course of action with the stake's FM representative, etc.).
The difficulty in having a random Melchizedek Priesthood holder at the building is the propriety of having a man and a woman alone together at the church building at a given point. I'm not suggesting something WILL happen, but it's always a best practice to follow the "missionary rules" in this regard. I know that's the practice followed in our stake....
I highly recommend that you bring those items in with you. One Sunday a lot of cars were broken into (windows smashed) and items such as you mentioned were stolen. This was while we were attending church meetings.
We are lucky. We have 8 teachers in our building every morning, 6 of which are priesthood holders. I go in extra early to be the one to open the building, or at least be very close to it. The sister who likes to come in early has told me on many occaisions how much she appreciates me being there.
We had a gang of drug dealers hanging around the Scout shed every morning. The police came and took them away. It is scarey when you see strange cars and people hanging around. I was always afraid one of the students would be abducted. Now we have priesthood there with us, kids go out in groups never alone. In this troubled world you can never be too careful.
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