January 2024 Utah: A recently proposed bill would require schools to have an SRO, armed security guard, or "school guardian"
Utah lawmakers have not only passed a
requirement for armed security at every Utah school — they’ve dipped deeply
into the state’s wallet to do it. After hearing concerns schools would be
footing an expensive bill for the new safety requirements, lawmakers allocated
$100 million in one-time funding.
The massive bill, almost 2,800 lines long, is the product of months of work done by Utah’s School Security Task
Force.
It would establish several new safety
standards for schools, including having a panic button in every classroom. It
also gives the state security chief, a position created last year, new
responsibilities.
But the piece that has received the most
attention from the public and pushback is the “school guardian” program.
Each school would either need to have a school
resource officer, an armed security guard or a “school guardian,” which would
be a school employee who is armed and trained to respond to “active threats.”
That employee can’t be a principal or teacher, unless there are only 100
students or less.
A substitute version of the bill passed the
full Senate unanimously and the House concurred with those changes 63-9 on Feb.
28.
Funding
Senate Majority Whip Ann Millner said they responded to concerns from the
education community that the potentially costly security requirements were an
“unfunded mandate.” The previous iteration only had $4.26 million in ongoing
funds and $1.36 million in one-time funding. It said school districts and
charter schools could apply to the existing School Safety and Support Grant Program to pay for requirements like installing
panic buttons
The passed bill now allocates $100 million in
one-time funding to that grant program.
“I think we now have a bill that has the
flexibility that we need, is no longer an unfunded mandate and will allow
everyone to proceed with the kind of support and help they need to make sure
our children are safe,” Millner said on the Senate floor.
How much money it will actually take to get
schools up to the new code is not yet known. Some already have some of the
required safety measures in place, while others do not.
Schools will be required to conduct a school
safety needs assessment to identify their deficiencies, and grant funding will
be awarded based on need. The bill also tasks the state security chief with
establishing building and safety standards.
Millner and Senate President Stuart Adams told reporters that after hearing money
concerns, they worked with school districts and seemed confident that the $100
million in one-time funding and $4.26 million in ongoing funds will be
sufficient.
School
guardians
In a Feb. 26 Senate Education Committee
hearing, Rep. Ryan Wilcox, the bill sponsor, said it was his preference that each school
have a school resource officer, meaning a law enforcement officer who works at
a school or district.
In the absence of that, schools can either
have an armed security guard or a volunteer “school guardian” to fulfill the
requirement in the bill.
Wilcox told lawmakers that in one Utah high
school, about two guns are confiscated from students every week. He didn’t name
the school. In addition to the guns that shouldn’t be there, educators
statewide are already legally carrying guns on school campuses with concealed
firearm permits.
That’s why Wilcox said his bill is “not about
adding more guns to schools. I promise you, they are already there.”
The goal, Wilcox said, is quicker response and
intervention in an emergency situation.
One of the student members on Provo School
District’s Board of Education, Will Weidner, told the committee that after
talking with his peers, “we are not comfortable with armed volunteers in our
schools.” He’d prefer the state give schools more funding so every school can
have a school resource officer.
Floor sponsor Sen. Don Ipson said if there’s an active shooter at a
school, “seconds, minutes count.”
How safe a student is at school depends on
where they are in the state, Wilcox said, as some districts have more security
than others.
His bill sets minimum safety and security
standards for schools, both for their physical buildings and their protocols.
It also requires that all school districts and first responder agencies use the
same critical incident response protocol.
Support
from Parkland parents
While working on this proposed
legislation, Wilcox visited Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in
Parkland, Florida, where 14 students and three staff members were killed in a
2018 shooting.
Two parents whose children were killed in that
shooting have spoken at committee meetings and visited the Utah Capitol to urge lawmakers to pass this bill.
“We never thought it would happen in our
community,” said Max Schachter, who lost his son Alex in the shooting. He
warned that “it's not a matter of if, it's just a matter of when and where the
next school shooting will happen.”
Lori Alhadeff’s daughter Alyssa was also
killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. Since then, Alhadeff has been
advocating for states to pass “Alyssa’s Law,” which requires schools to have silent panic alarms in each
classroom to notify law enforcement. Wilcox has incorporated that requirement
into his bill.
Response
from educators
The bill was opposed by the state’s largest
teachers union, the Utah
Education Association.
President Renée Pinkney said there are several
components she is in favor of, like the panic buttons in every classroom. She
said those would be useful not only if there’s an active threat, but also if a
student is having a medical emergency. She also likes the building safety
assessment and the standardized safety standards and protocols across the
state.
Generally, she said the Legislature’s
attention to the issue of school safety, through spending months working on
this bill and allocating over $100 million, is “very welcome by the school
community.”
The association’s concern, Pinkney said, is
with the school guardian program. While the bill requires guardians be trained
in firearm safety, de-escalation tactics and the role of mental health in
incidents, she’s concerned that it won’t be enough to prepare these school
employees to interact with children of all ages and backgrounds in a way that
“mitigates trauma.”
And while lawmakers are allocating a large
amount of one-time funding, Pinkney said “safety concerns are ongoing.” To her,
the support from lawmakers needs to be “continuous and it has to be
consistent.”
For his part, Wilcox has said that this isn’t
a one-and-done bill. He anticipates this is an issue they’ll keep working on.
His bill also extends how long the state’s School Security Task Force will last from its original tenure
through the end of 2023, now lasting until the end of 2025.
Wilcox’s bill also creates an Education
Advisory Board for the task board. It’ll include superintendents, facilities
managers, charter school representatives, private school representatives, a
parent and other members of the education community.
Other
school safety bills
Another bill from Wilcox that passed both the House
and the Senate will make it a second-degree felony to make a hoax threat to a
school. It also increases penalties for making a violent threat against a
school, real or fake.
Republican Rep. Tim Jimenez’s bill, which also passed, will create a program to
incentivize teachers to “responsibly secure or carry a firearm on school
grounds,” by giving them free training on firearms and defending their
classroom. It also gives teachers liability protection.
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Utah Code |
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Public Education
System -- Local Administration |
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Discipline and Safety |
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School Safety
Personnel |
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Section 703 |
Contracts between an
LEA and law enforcement for school resource officer services -- Requirements
-- LEA establishment of a school resource officer policy -- Public comment. (Effective
5/1/2024) |
Effective 5/1/2024
53G-8-703. Contracts between an LEA and law enforcement for
school resource officer services -- Requirements -- LEA establishment of a
school resource officer policy -- Public comment.
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(1) |
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(2) |
An LEA contract with a law
enforcement agency to provide school resource officer services at the LEA
shall require in the contract:
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(3) |
An LEA may not require or prohibit
mandatory rotations of school resource officers as part of the contract
described in Subsection (2). |
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(4) |
An LEA that uses a school resource
officer under Subsection (1)(a) shall establish a school resource officer policy. |
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(5) |
The school resource officer policy
described in Subsection (4) shall include:
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(6) |
Before implementing the school
resource officer policy described in Subsection (4), the LEA shall present
the school resource officer policy at a public meeting and receive public
comment on the school resource officer policy. |
Amended by Chapter 21, 2024 General Session
