The Broward School District may overhaul its police officer and armed security guard programs in schools, considering everything from forming its own police force to contracting out solely with the Broward Sheriff’s Office.
The school district also may relax the strict criteria for its new armed guardian program, after finding the district is losing some of these non-sworn officers to police departments.
The school district requires applicants to be at least 21 years old and have a minimum of two years of military or sworn law enforcement experience to hold the newly created job, which pays $25,000 to $33,000 a year. The district has lost 11 percent of its guardians since it started since the program started in August.
“We want the widest pool to select the best candidates from,” said Brain Katz, the district’s new chief of safety, security and emergency preparedness.
The security discussion, held during a Tuesday workshop, came as the School Board decides how to spend $18 million in new money it will receive for security for the 2019-20 school year. The money is part of the $93 million voters approved for security, teacher raises and mental health counselors.
Right now, the school district has agreements with 14 cities to provide school resource officers on campuses. Some cities pay for officers in every school, while other cities pay for them in only some of their schools. The school district pays $52,000 per officer, and cities cover the rest of the costs.
A state law, passed last year in the wake of the Parkland massacre, requires schools to have at least one armed person at every school. For those schools where cities don’t provide funding for police, the school district created the armed guardian program last year. These employees work mostly in elementary schools, and their main responsibility is protecting the school from an active shooter.
School Board members would prefer police officers to guardians when possible, but district officials say there are two problems: cost and a lack of officers.
They said it would cost $28 million to fully staff schools with police officers, and there’s a shortage of about 1,500 police officers statewide.
Superintendent Robert Runcie said much of the new security money is already planned for hiring unarmed security monitors in elementary schools.
“We need to look at different models if we can’t afford the current model,” Board member Robin Bartleman said.
“We can’t afford the current model,” Jeff Moquin, chief of staff to Runcie, responded. “We’re not getting $28 million.”
Moquin said he’s had some early talks new Sheriff Gregory Tony about the Broward Sheriff’s Office taking over policing duties in schools.
Board member Patti Good said she doubts the district can afford that.
“I don’t foresee municipalities would continue contributing … if that SRO is not from their municipality,” Good said.
District officials are also considering creating their own police force similar to ones used in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach county school districts.
If the board stays with the current plan of sharing costs with cities, board members said they may need stricter rules on expectations of police. Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Scott Peterson was widely ridiculed when he chose not to enter the building during the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High. But there are also been complaints about less tragic issues.
Bartleman said she received several emails about four schools where police officers were sitting in their cars all day. “That’s not acceptable,” she said. “Maybe it’s not all true but we can’t have SROs in some schools engaging and others sitting in cars.”