BELL COUNTY, Texas — School districts in Texas are now required by law to have armed security guards on every campus.
In response to the tragic loss of lives in Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Gov. Abbott signed House Bill 3 into law, requiring school districts to increase security measures.
One of those additions is armed commissioned peace officers on every campus.
This is something Temple ISD says they will have in place by the beginning of the school year.
”We’re going to get the specific people identified per campus,” said Dr. Bobby Ott, Superintendent of Temple ISD.
“That will be the next step and then, meet the principal, get to know the campus and be ready day one.”
Other districts like Copperas Cove are running into a slight snag.
”Right now, of course with the passage of legislation, there’s been a rush by school districts all across the state, to try to secure those services,” said Dr. Joe Burns, Superintendent of Copperas Cove ISD.
Both districts are working with local police departments to provide a mix of options to comply with the new legislation.
”We’re looking at every option out there,” Dr. Burns said.
"The armed security officer, the SRO, school marshals, and school guardians.”
Temple ISD plans to have SRO’s on many of their campuses, but there are eight campuses that will be serviced by a security company.
”Elementary schools that we’ve contracted with the security company, they will have commissioned security officers,” Dr. Ott said.
“They will actually be armed. We’ll have an armed person on every campus full time.”
Like Copperas Cove, Temple is planning to have additional training for all the hired security officers.
”One being the local active shooter training that we do here,” Dr. Ott said.
“We’re going to require the security officers to go through that.”
Both districts also say they have security vestibules on every campus, easily labeled doors for first responders, and granted their local police departments access to their security cameras.
