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Inching toward compliance, most Utah schools will have armed volunteer guardians

Salt Lake City Police cars parked outside East High School in Salt Lake City, Dec. 5, 2024.
Martha Harris
/
KUER
Salt Lake City Police cars parked outside East High School in Salt Lake City, Dec. 5, 2024.

This school year, more Utah K-12 schools will have some form of armed security required by a 2024 state law.

While schools were told to get in compliance as soon as possible, Matt Pennington, state security chief at the Utah Department of Public Safety, said they knew it would take time to find people and get them trained. Over the summer, more schools have fulfilled that requirement, although for many, it’s still a work in progress.

“I don't think by any means we're close to 100% compliance,” Pennington said. “But I do believe that everyone's on board and moving in the right direction.”

The law spells out three ways schools can have an armed guard. They can either contract with a local law enforcement agency to have an officer assigned to the campus as a school resource officer or hire a private security guard. Those are the two more expensive options.

The third is to have a school employee volunteer to be an armed “school guardian” on campus. In most cases, that person can’t be a principal or teacher. It could be a custodian or secretary, for example. The volunteer must be approved by the school administrator, pass a mental health screening and receive at least 28 hours of training from their county sheriff’s office. That includes things like instruction on using firearms and de-escalation.

About 300 of the roughly 1,100 public, private and charter schools have chosen to go with a school resource officer, Pennington said. Some had that in place before the law. A handful have private armed security.

“The large majority seem to be going with the guardian option,” Pennington said. “Those trainings have been happening over the last several months, and I would assume will continue to happen into the school year.”

By the end of this school year, he hopes a majority of schools will have someone fulfilling the armed guard role.

Since the law was passed, Lt. Mikelshan Bartschi with the Cache County Sheriff’s Office said law enforcement across the state has been discussing how to implement the law, and that collaboration has been helpful. They now meet every two months.

Guardian training has been going well so far, he said. While the material is advanced, volunteers are eager to learn and are coachable.

“We're going from a position of a concealed draw all the way to moving and shooting within a one-week time frame,” Bartschi said. “And that doesn't even happen in the police academy, quite honestly.”

Bartschi added that it varies across the state — while some regions have more than enough volunteers, others are struggling to fill the minimum. Most pass the training, but a small number don’t.

The main frustration law enforcement and schools have, the lack of money, hasn’t changed over the last two years. It costs law enforcement money to put on the trainings, which are biannual after the initial one. And especially for agencies already strapped for time and resources, “you're now saying, ‘OK, train all of these additional individuals.’ Where am I getting that time from?” Bartschi said.

For schools, in addition to the armed security requirement, the 2024 law contains a whole host of other mandates, like panic buttons in every classroom, stronger windows, video surveillance and internal classroom door locks.

“You watch a lot of these school districts asking for better than double-digit increases in taxes. Part of that is trying to figure out how to staff and get the funding to implement some of the security measures,” Bartschi said.

Lawmakers allocated $100 million for the effort in 2024 and added another $25 million in 2025, but that doesn’t even come close to the $800 million price tag that bill sponsor Republican Rep. Ryan Wilcox estimated last year.

Bartschi said the second biggest concern for law enforcement is liability. The law introduced some complex liability issues that he said they’re still talking through.

Martha is KUER’s education reporter.
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