School District Moves Forward with Armed Security Guards

MANATEE COUNTY – The Manatee County School district said Tuesday that it will begin the process of recruiting, hiring and training "guardians" to secure district schools, following a failed attempt to find funding to put a local law enforcement officer in each school.

At Tuesday's meeting, Deputy Superintendent Ron Ciranna told the Manatee School Board that the district will begin recruiting candidates in the next two weeks, with hires expected to be made in early June and training to take place over the summer.

About 30 guardians will hired for schools that do not have school resources officers. They will undergo 144 hours of firearms training, along with a background check and a psychological evaluation. The training program will be overseen by the Manatee Sheriff's Office.

A draft of the job description includes requirements for a high school diploma or equivalent, with training in the security industry preferred. The guardian supervisor would need 10 years of "successful experience" in law enforcement, military or private security management, and a bachelor's degree in criminal justice.

The move comes following the a new state law passed in the wake of the Parkland massacre, which requires a police officer in every Florida school. However, it makes allowances for armed security guards, so long as they are trained by local law enforcement. The state did not, however, fully fund the requirement, leaving counties, municipalities and school districts scrambling to find ways to comply.

Both the district and the board were clear that they would prefer to use Sheriff's deputies, but cannot find the funds to do so. Ciranna gave several cost estimates and comparisons on Tuesday, but struggled to give a precise answer on costs and savings, saying that not all information is currently available and that the breakdowns would be forthcoming.

Ironically, the district tried hiring armed security personnel in 2014, following the Sandy Hook massacre. Reasoning that it could not afford a law enforcement officer in every school (SROs cost the district around $150,000 each, per year), former superintendent Rick Mills proposed contracting with a firm that used only former police officers and retired military and could deliver the guards at roughly 20 percent of the cost of SROs.

The plan got bogged down in multiple political feuds, however, and never got off the ground. You can read more about that here,here,andhere. Ultimately, the guards were briefly put into the schools, though unarmed, until a dispute over whether it was legal for non-law enforcement employees to guard schools (an ALJ later opined that it was). The contract was soon after canceled, resulting in a lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed.

The district does currently have armed law enforcement officers on all campuses, including elementary schools, and two armed law enforcement officers on each high school campus, after an expansion following the Parkland shootings. However, that was a short-term funding measure taken with the hope that the state would ultimately come through with the full funding, which it has not.