Finding enough qualified teachers is one thing at the beginning of each new school year. But finding enough qualified armed security to start the year is something else again. That’s what the state’s newest school safety law is forcing every district to face.
Spurred by last year's shooting at a school in Uvalde, House Bill 3 will require an armed security officer on every campus in the state when it goes into effect Sept. 1.
Texas has more than 1,000 districts and more than 8,000 schools. North Texas districts from Dallas to Duncanville, Carroll to Keller are clamoring to comply.
“It’s a huge staffing issue,” said Dallas school board President Justin Henry. “We don’t have enough (people) on hand right now, and it’s not a market where we can go out and start hiring police officers.”
In part, that’s because police departments themselves are looking to hire their own future officers. In addition, neighboring school districts also need armed security. Everyone’s dipping into the same pool of candidates.
“That’s a tough market right now,” Henry said.
Money might help attract needed candidates, but Henry concedes the state’s per-school stipend is unpersuasive. He said after talking to Dallas administrators, the going rate for qualified, armed security is roughly $85,000, which includes a competitive salary and benefits.
“What we’re getting from the state is $15,000 per school,” he said. “So you can already kind of see the gap.”
Dallas high schools and middle schools already have armed security through the district’s own police force. But its more than 140 elementary schools don’t — leaving Dallas in need of more than $8 million.
Every district’s needs are different. Some have hired or will hire local police or army veterans, maybe retired. Some districts are hiring and training their own teachers who are willing to carry a gun on the job every day under marshal and guardian programs.
Some districts, like Allen ISD and Wylie, have contracted with an outside firm, L&P Global Security, to supply needed guards who meet state standards.
Earlier this month, Allen trustees concluded it would cost nearly $700,000 for armed security in every school currently without one. With the state stipend, the district still needs to find roughly half that amount again to pay for the new armed security.
In Plano, trustees opted to implement a school marshal program to place armed officers in its elementary schools and other education centers that don’t already have a school resource officer. The district says it’s getting a little more than $1 million from the state, but has to use about $2.9 million of its own funds to hire 55 new employees.
“I hope the other parents out there go to their state legislators and request that programs like this get fully funded by the state because this is going to be done at a huge cost to our district so that we can do it the right way,” board member Tarrah Lantz said.
The process of getting officers into schools to comply with the law will take weeks.
“We won’t drag our feet but we will not rush to fill the positions as well,” Chief of Safety and Security Operations Kevin Keating said, “because I think its more important that we get the right people than we get the people right away.”
The important question remains: Will armed security actually improve school safety? Legislators and the governor enthusiastically said yes.
Dallas school board first vice-president Dan Micciche agreed.
“In our case,” Micciche said, “we have officers in high schools and middle schools, but we don't currently have officers assigned to elementary schools. Having an officer would probably make the schools somewhat safer.”
But critics like Donna Schmidt with Moms Demand Action say armed security does not improve school safety.
“There is no data whatsoever,” Schmidt said, “to show that an armed presence in a school has reduced any shootings or injuries or deaths in a school.” She said she worries that more guns in schools, even a guard’s gun, ups the odds of a bad outcome.
Other critics of House Bill 3, including Texas Gun Sense director Nicole Golden, praised it for an educational amendment. “We worked to place a measure that would have districts provide information about safe gun storage to parents and guardians of the school children, she said. “And that's, you know, an incredible move forward,” Golden said.
Dallas parents and students at a recent school fair said they welcome the additional security in schools. Eighth-grader Kamiriyh Rose said she likes her school’s armed guard and feels safer there as a result “because there are a lot of school shootings, and if the police officer is there it’ll make me feel safer.”
Dallas ISD mom Keanna Valdez has several kids in district schools and also likes that there’ll be armed security in every school.
“Because so much is going on nowadays,” Valdez said. “With them being in the schools, and armed, it makes me feel better.”
