More School Guardians?

[Paladin]

Reading up on HB 3, it sounds like there may be more demand for School Guardian training going forward:

Armed Security Officer Requirement in House Bill 3 (2023)

House Bill 3 (HB 3), effective September 1, 2023, adds new Texas Education Code section 37.0814. This new law requires each school board to determine the appropriate number of armed security officers for each district campus and, absent a good cause exception, ensure at least one armed security officer—specifically, a commissioned peace officer—is present during regular school hours at each campus. A school board can claim a good cause exception to this requirement due to lack of funding or qualified personnel. If the board claims a good cause exception, the board must provide an alternative standard that may include reliance on a school marshal or an employee or contracted individual who has completed the handgun safety course required for handgun license holders and is authorized to carry a firearm by the district (often called a “guardian” in school board policy).

Does a district’s alternative standard have to involve reliance on school marshals or guardians?
No, but it can. HB 3 specifically states that a board that claims a good cause exception must develop an alternative standard with which the district is able to comply, which “may include providing a person to act as a security officer who is a school marshal or a school district employee or a person with whom the district contracts who has completed school safety training provided by a qualified handgun instructor certified in school safety under Section 411.1901, Government Code and carries a handgun on school premises in accordance with written regulations or written authorization of the district under Section 46.03(a)(1)(A), Penal Code.” The locally authorized individual with school safety training by a qualified handgun instructor is often called a “guardian” in local school board policy.

Has anyone seen an uptick in guardian training?

[PriestTheRunner]

Has anyone seen an uptick in guardian training?

The company I teach with is almost exclusively in "Guardian" training mode, but we actually train to Level 4 security license standards and utilize a PPO license in lieu of just a LTC and guardian program. We used to do other things as well but the school demand has been so high and we can only process a handful at a time. The guardian program alone (as laid out by the state) is actually pretty bad, and not the standard I would want the school employees to have if my kid were in their school. Its better than nothing, but in my opinion honestly not a high enough standard.

There are dozens of east Texas schools who have reached out, desperate for Level 3 (Commissioned) security officers in order to fill the mandate, and those that have gone that route haven't met a very good standard either. There's just not enough out there for every school, the same as police.

[philip964]

I understand your concern about the minimum level of training.

My view however is that mass school shootings will stop just as quickly as they started with the banning of guns at schools in 1990.

The mass shootings will move to other softer targets. Nursery Schools unfortunately, if they were left out of the Guardian program, but most likely malls and big box stores.

[Paladin]

This discussion reminds me of Paul Howe's article: ACTIVE SHOOTER: TRAIN NOW OR PAY LATER

Responding to an Active Shooter is the most difficult mission to perform of all the
missions skills assigned to either patrol or tactical officers. Why? Active Shooter
response requires a practiced and rehearsed plan ahead of time. Not only does the
plan need to be rehearsed, but officers need to take special equipment to ensure that
after the threat is neutralized and the medical contingencies encountered are
addressed. Essentially you must be prepared to perform a cold hit on an unknown
target, a task that requires a degree of skill to be successful.

Active shooter classes are generally two-days, 16 hours in length. I have found that
this is not enough time to cover all the contingencies.

[Mike S]

The guardian program alone (as laid out by the state) is actually pretty bad, and not the standard I would want the school employees to have if my kid were in their school.

Its better than nothing, but in my opinion honestly not a high enough standard.

This, goes hand in hand with this...

This discussion reminds me of Paul Howe's article: ACTIVE SHOOTER: TRAIN NOW OR PAY LATER

Active shooter classes are generally two-days, 16 hours in length. I have found that
this is not enough time to cover all the contingencies.

The DPS School Safety Course's classroom portion on Avoid/Deny/Defend is pretty solid, in my opinion, especially when coupled with the Practical Exercises.

What's lacking is in the handgun training portion, which currently is a very low round count set of events that are more akin to 'familiarization drills' instead of 'skill building drills'. The most egregious fault I see is the prohibition by DPS on conducting holster work as part of their SSC POI. The course of fire's 'start position' with the gun laying on a barrel or table in front of the students is absurd; given that most teachers or faculty will be carrying concealed while on the job, it's insane to not include holster work as part of the curriculum. ((I say 'most', but there are some districts that provide gun safes for storage within the classroom. For those, a practical standard would be to place a gun safe on a barrel or table and have the student access their firearm as part of the 'start position')).

Perhaps doing the academic classroom portion online would provide more time for the practical exercises in person, and the remainder of the two days could be devoted to actually developing handgun skills that would be useful in a school / college setting.

[troglodyte]

As a former teacher, teacher's spouse, and a School Safety instructor I think the DPS needs to revisit the School Safety curriculum. I find that the educators I teach already have a good grasp on the ADD. It is pretty standard in-service training, if not every year, every couple of years. I too would like to see more "tactical" skills and shooting. I'm not advocating they be SWAT, SEAL, Spetsnaz trained but rather more training on use of cover, movement, real reloads and failure drills, shoot/no shoot, failure to stop, multiple targets, hostage, etc.

I have the honor of doing the annual training for a local school's Guardians. This is where I introduce the above and try to get them more up to speed, building a little more every year while reinforcing the basics. Some of my other schools I have trained in SS have not sought out any additional training, mine or anyone else's. Some of those Guardians have reached out to me and I try to include them, as I can, in the annual school's training.

[Bolton Strid]

The mass shootings will move to other softer targets. Nursery Schools unfortunately, if they were left out of the Guardian program, but most likely malls and big box stores.

The schools will remain targets and the violence will continue, because, it's THE LAW.

The politicians seen on TV bemoaning another massacre and proclaiming that something must be done are the same people who created the circumstances for it to happen, because of THE LAW.

No matter how dangerous or deranged a student may be, they have to be accommodated, because IT'S THE LAW.
The menace continues to predominately be from within and children are being locked in with it.

Several social media posts below concerning the incident at Italy High School TX six years ago this month.

True full spectrum school security will remain elusive unless changes are made, somehow.

[Bolton Strid]

Responding to an Active Shooter is the most difficult mission to perform of all the
missions skills assigned to either patrol or tactical officers. Why? Active Shooter
response requires a practiced and rehearsed plan ahead of time. Not only does the
plan need to be rehearsed, but officers need to take special equipment to ensure that
after the threat is neutralized and the medical contingencies encountered are
addressed. Essentially you must be prepared to perform a cold hit on an unknown
target, a task that requires a degree of skill to be successful.

Urban warfare, building to building, room to room - the most difficult of mission tactics for the MILITARY, let alone for civilians. It's the worst of tasks.

It was such a meat grinder for our troops during their advance across Europe during WW2 that they went to clearing structures by systematically blowing holes into the exterior then interior walls of buildings with bazookas or charges in lieu of venturing into the threat of kill zone shooting galleries at doors and in the hallways behind them.

The sort of resources and ROE customarily used by the military cannot be employed for this, for obvious reasons. It's been fortunate so far, if you can call it that, it's been disordered, mentally disorganized people who have pushed these sort of attacks out of some sort of delusion or unchecked impulse to act, who have no plan, no honed tactics besides "attack". But what if there comes a day attackers appear who are quite organized and have a plan, a worst case scenario comparable to the Beslan school siege, the Dubrovka Theater takeover. Another whole level of concern, particularly in the face of the porous border we have, with who knows what coming across it.

[chasfm11]

The sort of resources and ROE customarily used by the military cannot be employed for this, for obvious reasons. It's been fortunate so far, if you can call it that, it's been disordered, mentally disorganized people who have pushed these sort of attacks out of some sort of delusion or unchecked impulse to act, who have no plan, no honed tactics besides "attack". But what if there comes a day attackers appear who are quite organized and have a plan, a worst case scenario comparable to the Beslan school siege, the Dubrovka Theater takeover. Another whole level of concern, particularly in the face of the porous border we have, with who knows what coming across it.[/size]

But I would like to offer a different perspective. When I got my then CHL, I was ill prepared for most of the types of threats that I might face where deadly force could be needed. I started on a journey to improve both my skills and my mindset. Yet, today, I'm ill prepared for a group of skilled adversaries. That probably won't change in my lifetime. I see the type of threats on a sliding scale and work to move my "needle" along that scale to harder and harder problems. Hopefully, the types of threats that I now feel better positioned to handle are the majority of the risks that I face. I see the schools in much the same way. The first step is loudly saying "I'm not going to be a victim" and following it up with constant improvements to tighten vulnerability. It would be unfortunate for both myself and a school to become victims of challenges that were greater than our response capabilities. But the history of the types of attacks on both of us suggests that some preparation and planning to limit the success of evil. The realism that we cannot be 100% should not stop us from being greater than zero. Alas, too many public education settings are not much above zero.

[Ruark]

An "armed officer" is going to be worthless in most school shooting situations.

A shooter goes into a classroom and starts going "bang-bang-bang-bang..." With each "bang," a child dies. Even if you have a freaking Navy SEAL on duty, how many "bangs" will there be before he actually gets alerted, travels to the building, locates the classroom, goes in and neutralizes the shooter? To that, consider that most schools have multiple buildings scattered all over several acres. Large urban high schools can have 30 or 40 buildings, almost like small town. Are you going to have an armed officer in each one? Hardly: many schools today can barely afford toilet paper.

Don't get me wrong, I strongly support having armed personnel on school campuses, including teachers with quick access to guns in the classrooms. There are gun safes, for example, where you press on it with your thumb or fingers, it reads the print and instantly pops open, with a gun standing there upright, loaded and cocked and ready to grab and shoot. I can see something like that on a teacher's desk.

But people are dead wrong if they think if they just get an "armed guard" on a school campus, they can kick back and think they've solved the school shooting question.

The whole answer is in access. Who can get into a school building, and how? Some schools have "panic buttons" on teachers' desks, where the teacher can thump the button and instantly lock the classroom door and alert the front office. There are other arrangements where somebody in a front office, principal's office, security office, etc. can thump a button and instantly lock every door on the campus, or maybe all the doors in a certain building or area. Some have "codes," like "Code Red" means active shooter. "Code Blue" means a weapon on campus. That sort of thing.

A gun is necessary to STOP a shooting, but access control is necessary to PREVENT a shooting. It's important to look at both.

It's sad that we have to talk about this. When I was a kid in the 50s, many people didn't even HAVE a key to their front door. The milkman would come by and if you weren't home, he'd go in and put the milk in the refrigerator, and if it was a holiday you'd leave a plate of cookies for him on the kitchen counter. Imagine doing that now.

It was common back then to see 200 bicycles on the rack in front of a grade school or middle school. Now you don't see any; it's too dangerous for kids to ride bikes to schools, they'll get kidnapped and raped and murdered.

The world has changed, and we have to change with it.

[LDB415]

I'm just a cranky old guy, emphasis on cranky. There should be a specific "super-license" for LTC. It should require higher proficiency demonstrations and additional classroom training. It should be available to any LTC holder that chooses to obtain it. With said license, holders should be able to carry anywhere. Anywhere. Out of a school of 1000 kids, not unheard of anymore, how many parents would obtain it? How many would be present at any given time with the constant random coming and going? How much more deterrent to bad guys knowing these people very well may be there and will end them? Definitely not less, that's for certain.

[Ruark]

I'm just a cranky old guy, emphasis on cranky. There should be a specific "super-license" for LTC. It should require higher proficiency demonstrations and additional classroom training. It should be available to any LTC holder that chooses to obtain it. With said license holders should be able to carry anywhere. Anywhere. Out of a school of 1000 kids, not unheard of anymore, how many parents would obtain it? How many would be present at any given time with the constant random coming and going? How much more deterrent to bad guys knowing these people very well may be there and will end them? Definitely not less, that's for certain.

I can see that - have something like a "Class II LTC" that might have expanded carrying privileges, something like that.

[Mel]

Here's the big problem with "School Guardians". Don't get me wrong, I'm all for them.

But When a 9-10 year old brings a gun to school and starts waving it around, threatening to kill everyone in the room, and gets shot, what are the headlines/article going to look like?

"My little Johnny wasn't serious! He was a good kid! He wouldn't hurt a fly!"

[Paladin]

I ran some cost estimates. Glassdoor is showing Texas police officers cost an average of $66K/year. Armed Security Officers cost perhaps as much as $55K/year.

Armed teachers (Guardians), with schools paying for their mandatory training, firearm, ammo as well as an annual sustaining training day would cost an average of $329-to-685/year depending on whether school districts pay them salary for training days and required equipment (most of these costs are startup costs so they would be front loaded).

That means you can afford as many as 200 armed teachers for what you would pay for 1 cop (averaged out over seven years).

Putting this in perspective, Ulvalde school district had 7 officers for 8 schools. Reducing 2-3 officers, Uvlade School District could have afforded to train and arm ALL 279 teachers in the school district.

I am not suggesting Ulvade rely exclusively on armed teachers, as police serve other functions. Its likely a combination of officers and qualified armed teachers would be most effective at protecting our schools. We need to be looking at how many teachers are both capable and willing and what the best ratio of police to armed teachers is.

*updated

[LDB415]

I wonder how many parents and other good citizens are concerned enough and would gladly pay $700 to go through the program? Then the cost to the district is zero.