Shā Rogers, LISD’s executive director of safety and security, updated parents on the district’s progress in forming a police department at three community events throughout November and December.
Current situation
LISD is working to submit an application to create the department with the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, or TCOLE. The district is forming agreements with local law enforcement agencies, establishing a dispatch system, and ordering equipment and vehicles for the department.
“We're well on our way to getting the police department up and going,” Rogers said at the community event Dec. 10. “It's going to take us a little bit more time.”
TCOLE will inspect the district’s facilities, vehicles and policies, she said. If the application is approved, TCOLE will issue an agency number to LISD Superintendent Bruce Gearing that will then be transferred to Rogers. She is slated to become the department's police chief after undergoing a background check.
In the meantime, LISD is hiring for several police officer and school marshal positions, which Rogers said she plans to fill by June 30. These employees will work in civilian roles until the department receives its licensing.
Rogers told Community Impact she hopes to complete the district’s TCOLE application by February or March and have officers on campus before next school year; however, a definite time frame is yet to be established.
The cost
The district is hiring for an assistant police chief, 10 school marshals and an administrative assistant. The board of trustees approved $1.1 million in funding for these positions last year.
The board is set to vote on amending its fiscal year 2024-25 budget at a Dec. 12 meeting, allocation $662,315 for three sergeants, five police officers and one communications coordinator, according to district documents.
The district is projected to incur $2 million in overall startup costs and $4.8 million in ongoing costs each year to fund the department.
The backstory
LISD is starting the department to comply with House Bill 3, a state law that has required districts to have an armed security guard at each campus since Sept. 1, 2023. The law allocates $10 per student and $15,000 per campus, which totaled around $1.1 million for LISD last school year.
Days after HB 3 went into effect, LISD claimed a good cause exception to the law’s officer requirements due to a lack of personnel and funding to staff officers across its 48 campuses, district officials said.
In November 2023, the board approved creating a police department. Additional options to satisfy the law’s requirements included contracting more school resource officers from local law enforcement agencies, hiring armed security officers or authorizing district employees to carry firearms.
Building its own police department would allow LISD the greatest control over hiring and training officers, and to avoid officer shortages among other agencies, district officials told Community Impact last year.
The specifics
The district will station peace officers at its high school and middle school campuses, and place school marshals at elementary schools and its future early childhood center.
Beginning in January, Texas school peace officers must complete 736 hours of training, 16 hours of active shooter training and 1,200-1,600 hours of School-Based Law Enforcement training.
School marshals must complete an 80-hour course and active shooter training, and have a license to carry. These district employees will not have the same authority as police officers and may only make arrests to prevent bodily injury or death, according to the presentation.
The district will continue contracting school resource officers from local law enforcement agencies at its high school campuses until those positions are filled by LISD officers, Rogers said.
