What you need to know
The Leander ISD board of trustees voted to launch a district police department and amend this school year's budget by over $1.1 million to cover the department's initial phase at a Nov. 30 meeting. The first phase will involve hiring a police chief, an assistant police chief, 10 school marshals and an administrative assistant as well as costs for training, insurance and equipment, said Bryan Miller, LISD executive director of student support, at a Nov. 9 meeting.
The district will now move forward with an application to create the department with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement and post job applications for some positions, Miller said in an interview with Community Impact. He hopes to have the application submitted and approved by the summer, he said
Once approved, the district may begin officially hiring police officers, Miller said. In the meantime, the district may hire school marshals as they do not have to meet the same requirements as officers, he said. The district will continue existing partnerships with local law enforcement agencies until those officers are no longer needed, he said.
Creating the department could take anywhere from nine to 18 months, Miller said at an Aug. 24 board meeting. The $7.6 million department is expected to encompass 35 school resource officers across middle and high school campuses and 32 school marshals across elementary and alternative school campuses.
How we got here
The department comes as the district has been working to meet the requirements of a new state law mandating school districts to have at least one armed security guard at every campus by Sept. 1.
On Sept. 7, the board of trustees voted to claim a good cause exception and adopt an alternative standard to the law as it could not meet its requirements due to a lack of funding and personnel. The district currently has eight school resource officers across eight campuses, Miller said.
Adopting the alternative standard has allowed the district more time to form a police department and hire school marshals who will be housed in the department but may have different responsibilities than officers, he said.
A closer look
The district will hire single-role marshals whose sole job would be to provide safety and security services versus a dual-role marshal, which would also serve in another capacity, such as a teacher or coach, Miller said. These marshals would undergo 80 hours of state training, hold a license to carry and only make arrests to prevent serious bodily injury, Miller said.
The school resource officers will be fully commissioned police officers with additional arrest and investigation powers needed at the middle and high school level, he said.
In their own words
“For our community, the best support that we could provide was to create our own police department,” Miller said. “That way we had responsibility in training. We had responsibility in hiring. We had all of that control so that we can make sure we put the best people at our campuses.”
