Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Utah schools face new territory this summer with firearms training, security hiring

A screen capture of Utah State Security Chief Matt Pennington, right, as he addressed the School Security Task Force, July 17, 2024.
Utah State Legislature
A screen capture of Utah State Security Chief Matt Pennington, right, as he addressed the School Security Task Force, July 17, 2024.

School districts and county sheriffs across Utah are working to comply with the state’s massive new school safety law as the start of the 2024-2025 school year looms ahead.

Among other things, the law creates a county security chief appointed by the respective county sheriff to oversee school safety. At the state’s School Security Task Force meeting on July 17, Lt. Mikelshan Bartschi in the Cache County Sheriff’s Office said those local security chiefs recently had their first meeting.

Twenty-two counties were represented and “we have a bunch of shared concerns,” he said.

One of those concerns is the wide range of training and experience levels. Bartschi said the majority of people in the position have “limited experience in this and limited training in any of the security aspects that you’re talking about.” Some security chiefs are on national school safety committees, but others found out five days ago they were taking on the role.

With that limited experience, he said getting everyone on the same page about how to best address school safety will take some time, but they are working on it. These local security chiefs have to work with school districts to complete safety needs assessments by the end of 2024. With the lack of shared knowledge and language, Bartschi said getting those assessments done will be a big task.

The biggest concern that came out of the meeting with local security chiefs, Bartschi said, was about schools wasting money because of the “predatory nature” of some safety vendors that “continue to come in.”

“They’re implementing artificial intelligence weapons detection, and they’re not even locking their doors,” Bartschi said of schools that don’t have intentional safety plans.

The law requires each school district to have a school safety and security director who will coordinate security responses and be the point of contact for the county security chief, local law enforcement and the state security chief.

Uintah School District Superintendent Rick Woodford was asked by the task force to present on how districts are coming along with appointing that person. At least in his district, Woodford said they struggled to do so because there was some confusion on how comfortable the safety and security director needs to be with using a firearm.

The law requires the director to have a concealed carry permit and take the same training as school guardians, school resource officers and armed security guards. That includes things like practicing at a range and using the firearm to defend oneself and others.

Woodford said the people who will likely be directors are former educators without a law enforcement background.

“When we try to find people that are comfortable with firearms, it becomes really challenging,” Woodford told the task force.

In his district, he found someone with leadership and organization skills who would be a perfect director. But, he said, “she is not the person to be packing a firearm.” And with the size of his district, Woodford said his options are limited. He imagines districts smaller than his are running into similar challenges.

In response, state leaders on the task force clarified that the director does have to take the training, but they don’t have to pass it. They must also have a concealed carry permit, but they are not required to carry a gun on campus. Though ideally, state lawmakers said the director would be able to step in if needed.

Woodford said this guidance differed from the direction he originally received from state leaders, from which Woodford thought that his director would have to pass a more difficult shooting course than is required of law enforcement officers.

After the task force meeting, Woodford told KUER he felt a lot more comfortable with appointing a director before the start of the school year with that clarification.

One of the most talked about parts of the law was the school guardian program. The new law stipulates that each Utah school is supposed to have one person on campus who is armed. That can be a school resource officer, a security guard or a volunteer school guardian. That person will likely be in place by the start of the 2025-2026 school year but the exact timeline will depend on each school’s safety needs assessment.

State Security Chief Matt Pennington said it likely won’t be known until the end of the school year how many schools have a police officer, security guard or volunteer fill that role. His office is still working on finishing the curriculum to train school guardians, Pennington said, but that should happen by the end of July so training can happen before the start of the school year.

Corrected: September 11, 2024 at 3:35 PM MDT
This story was updated to clarify that there isn't a hard deadline associated with schools having armed security in place.
Martha is KUER’s education reporter.
KUER is listener-supported public radio. Support this work by making a donation today.