What you need to know
The changes are to meet the requirements for House Bill 3, which, among a number of safety requirements, calls for districts to have armed officers at all campuses during school hours, according to the bill.
FISD will be hiring armed auxiliary officers for each campus, according to district agenda documents.
The armed auxiliary officers will be hired through TABI, a company that provides TCOLE—or Texas Commission on Law Enforcement—certified and trained law enforcement officers to both public and private school districts across the state, according to district documents.
While some officers will be coming right out of the academy with less experience, they will have all of the certifications required to be an armed auxiliary officer for the district, Superintendent Thad Roher said at the meeting.
The costs for this service will be between $156,000 and $200,000, according to district documents.
What else?
FISD will also have four SROs across the district. The SROs will be dispersed as follows:
- 2 SROs at Friendswood High School
- 1 SRO at Friendswood Junior High
- 1 SRO roving through all elementary schools, which are Westwood Elementary School, Windsong Intermediate School, C.W. Cline Elementary School and Zue S. Bales Elementary School
How we got here
Multiple school districts across the state have passed a variety of policies to meet HB3’s requirements. Some in the area, such as Pearland ISD, Clear Creek ISD and Alvin ISD, have approved exceptions to the bill, citing an inability to meet either the personnel or financial requirements.
The bill includes a carve out for districts to pass such exceptions as long as they create a new safety plan that complies with the law, as previously reported by Community Impact.
