In the wake of the 2018 Marshall County High School shooting that left two students dead and more than a dozen injured, the Kentucky legislature passed a law that requires school districts to have an armed law enforcement officer on each campus across the commonwealth.
But in the five years since passage of the School Safety and Resiliency Act, many districts have struggled to meet that mandate to hire school resource officers or SROs. Some have been unable to find enough qualified applicants, while others simply lack the funding to pay them. There are currently 789 SROs working in the state’s public schools, according to the Kentucky Center for School Safety. Most of them are employed by local sheriff or police departments, with the remainder employed by the schools. But about 40 percent of districts still have no SROs.
Now the General Assembly is considering a proposal to allow districts to have armed guardians patrol schools that lack SROs or at schools that want to supplement the SROs they do have.
“We are not replacing an SRO,” says Sen. Max Wise (R-Campbellsville), who is sponsor of the measure. “However, there’s going to be some districts, even with funding, that may not be (able) to cover every campus that that district has... This is another way to provide that security.”
Under Senate Bill 2, school guardians would be drawn from retired law enforcement officers or honorably discharged military veterans. Guardian applicants would have to undergo background checks, medical and psychological evaluations, and drug testing. They would also be required to complete training on marksmanship and responding to active shooter situations.
“We’re not just simply saying, ‘Hey, you want to be a guardian? Here’s your gun, protect the school,’” says Wise. “There are safeguards put into place with this bill.”
Finally, guardians would have to complete the first of three levels of training required of SROs. That level-one instruction focuses on working in school settings, de-escalating student conflicts, and dealing with special-needs youth. While guardians would receive some of the same training as school resource officers, they would not have the same authority as SROs, says Chris Barrier, chief of the Montgomery County School District Police Department. For example, SROs have power to arrest students but guardians would not.
“That’s what we would prefer, them to not act as police officers because they’re not trained like we are” says Barrier.
The choice of whether to use armed guardians – and what, if anything, they are paid – would be left up to local school officials, and Kentucky Association of School Administrators Executive Director Rhonda Caldwell says she trusts district administrators and school boards to do what’s best for their communities. With student misconduct a growing concern, she says school security is an important issue.
“The job of schooling is education, and a child has to feel safe before he or she can really learn,” says Caldwell.
Concerns about Training, Funding, and Effectiveness
The lower training requirements for guardians worries opponents of SB 2. Sen. Reggie Thomas (D- Lexington) says having law enforcement or military experience doesn’t necessarily qualify a guardian to work in a school setting surrounded by children. He fears SB 2 could make schools less safe, saying an armed guardian might inadvertently exacerbate conflicts, not diffuse them.
“They may have the mindset of thinking... I’m a hired gun,” says Thomas. “They won’t see themselves as an educator, they won’t see themselves as a counselor, they won’t see themselves as someone who’s there to help students and try to lead them on the right path.”
Because interacting with a guardian might be the first encounter a child has with any type of law enforcement, Jack Straw says it’s critical that the guardians are properly prepared to work in schools.
“If we’re going to train them to be interacting with students and having those positive interactions, let’s get them a little more training,” says Straw, who is vice president of the Kentucky State Fraternal Order of Police. “Let’s get them set up to be an SRO.”
The School Safety and Resiliency Act provided no funding for school districts to hire for SROs. Wise says he hopes lawmakers will include money for them in this year’s state budget. Similarly, SB 2 does not provide funding for armed guardians. Since school security is so important, Straw says lawmakers need to step up with the needed dollars.
“Why not fund an SRO program?” Straw says. “Let’s just do it.”
Opponents also question whether the presence of SROs or armed guardians actually prevent gun deaths at schools. Cathy Hobart of Moms Demand Action Kentucky says there have even been cases of SROs leaving their weapons unattended or accidently discharging them. She contends simply putting more armed adults in schools won’t make children feel safer.
“What we need to do is to think about what are some other measures that we can be taking to prevent gun violence before it ever gets to the school door,” says Hobart. “The kinds of things that we know could actually get guns out of the hands of these people that are dangerous, our legislators will not discuss them.”
Such measures include safe storage laws that require gun owners to secure their weapons where children can’t access them. Hobart also points to Senate Bill 13, which would create a mechanism to temporarily remove firearms from an individual deemed by the court to be an imminent threat to themselves or others. Neither of those proposals have gained traction among state lawmakers.
As an SRO himself, Barrier says the guardian proposal is merely a stopgap measure to protect students in schools that can’t yet hire fully trained SROs.
“I think people feel safer when they know that there’s somebody there that’s willing and capable and committed to taking an act of violence on themselves so that they can be protected,” says Barrier.
Student Mental Health and School Security
In addition to allowing schools to use armed guardians, SB 2 has provisions on student mental health and school security. The legislation calls for two suicide prevention lessons a year for children in grades 6 through 12 as well as suicide prevention training for school staff. It also calls upon SROs, school counselors, and social workers to collect data on student mental health needs and services provided, and then report that information to the state each year. Wise says that will help lawmakers better know the needs of students and schools that should be addressed
School counselors will also be required to spend 60 percent of their time providing direct services to students. Counselors, social workers, and community-based providers of mental health services would be expected to collaborate on trauma-informed care for students.
Finally, the legislation calls for electronic mapping of all school buildings. These maps would aid first responders reacting to a shooting or other crisis at a school.
SB 2 passed the Senate on a 28 to 10 vote on March 5. It awaits further action by the House Education Committee.
