Local school districts approve armed ‘guardians’ for campus security
Burnet Consolidated and Marble Falls independent school district administration buildings. File photos
The Burnet Consolidated and Marble Falls independent school districts recently each reapproved the use of armed “guardians” to meet state requirements for school security that have been in place for the last three years.
During their July board meetings, BCISD and MFISD trustees declared a “good cause exception” to authorize the use of handgun-certified “guardians” at district campuses to meet the standards set by Texas House Bill 3 in 2023.
Per bill’s language, Texas school districts must have at least one district peace officer, school resource officer, or commissioned peace officer stationed at each campus. If a district cannot meet this requirement, they are allowed to appoint a handgun-certified guardian to fill the gap.
The guardian program is not new for either district, with BCISD employing guardians for the last few years, and MFISD employing them since the summer of 2018.
According to BCISD Police Chief Dwayne Kyle, several districts around the state approve teachers, administrators, and other campus staff as guardians, as allowed in Texas Education Code Section 37.0814 created after the bill’s approval.
BCISD’s guardians, stationed at two of the district’s elementary schools, are security professionals hired for the sole purpose of being a guardian. Since these staff members are not sworn-in peace officers or resource officers, they fall under the “guardian” category of the Texas Education Code’s standards.
“A lot of I-S-D’s… give (guardian status) to a teacher or an administrator,” Chief Kyle said. “We hire someone specifically just for this function. All they do is safety and security.”
According to MFISD Superintendent Dr. Jeff Gasaway, MFISD has a partnership with the Marble Falls Police Department to staff officers at six of its seven campuses, with the guardian program helping with the last.
Chief Kyle added that guardians are all required to go through state-mandated handgun training and, in BCISD’s case, regularly participate in exercises that officers of the district’s newly-founded police department undergo.
“We all went through the same training,” he said. “And now that we have a department, I’ve been bringing them in on our training as well. They’ve been doing the active shooter training, the shield training–everything that the other officers are doing.”