Officials: Legislature stiffs schools on safety program; arming staff may be only option

Superintendents and sheriffs say lawmakers clearly don't know much about arithmetic

James Call
Tallahassee Democrat
A memorial for student Joaquin Oliver and assistant football coach Aaron Feis, two of the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, sits in a park in Parkland, Florida on February 16, 2018. 
 A former student, Nikolas Cruz, opened fire at the Florida high school leaving 17 people dead and 15 injured. / AFP PHOTO / RHONA WISERHONA WISE/AFP/Getty Images ORIG FILE ID: AFP_1027IX

The events of Feb. 14 and the subsequent fall out at the Capitol have left Florida school districts and sheriffs in a fiscal pickle.

Many superintendents oppose arming staff as part of the Aaron Feis Guardian program, named in honor of the Parkland high school assistant football coach killed in the attack. However, the legislation allocated insufficient money to pay for a resource deputy at every school. So officials worry arming staff might be the affordable if not the politically palatable option for some districts.

Sheriffs and school superintendents say Florida lawmakers don’t know much about math. The school safety bill Gov. Rick Scott signed includes a voluntary guardian program. It also orders school districts and sheriffs to cooperate to have either a school marshal or a sheriff deputy, aka school resource officer, on every public-school campus.

It didn’t matter whether Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri looked at a calculator or chalkboard Friday morning for him to see that there isn't enough money in the state budget to pay the bill Tallahassee handed sheriffs and school superintendents when Scott signed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act.

“There’s an expectation created that there will be a law enforcement officer on every campus. How are we going to do that?” asked Gualtieri, looking at a $6.2 million tab to hire and equip 92 more deputies to comply with the Act. “Sheriffs don’t have taxing authority. I can’t raise revenue. Someone else has to fund what I’m required to do. Who?”

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Wakulla County moved to meet the law’s requirements last week when it became clear where the Legislature was going in response to the Valentine Day’s massacre.  The School Board approved spending the money to staff six additional school resource officers for the remainder of the year.

Superintendent Bobby Pearce said no decision has been made about arming staff as part of the newly-created guardian program. However, he did say when the new school year begins in August, there will be two SROs at Wakulla High and one officer at each of the district’s middle and elementary schools.

“Every four years as an elected superintendent I put my hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the laws of the state of Florida,” said Pearce. “So, if the law says we will have a resource officer at every school regardless of whether the funding comes down, which it appears it will not be, we by law will have to come up with the funds to carry that out.”

Statewide, another 1,500 deputies would be needed for every school campus to be staffed, according to the Florida Education Association, a teachers union. The Florida Sheriffs Association said it would cost about $360 million to comply. The budget spends $162 million on the program.

Districts can meet the requirement through a combination of deputies and guardians, a loophole critics of arming school staff feared lawmakers would exploit to avoid paying the bill for the public safety program they designed.

"I'm dumbfounded.  We are going to have to go into our general fund to meet this mandate," said Leon Superintendent Rocky Hanna, who is looking at a $700,000 difference between what the state will give him for the SRO/guardian requirement and the actual cost to hire more deputies.

Hanna refuses to participate in the guardian program and said he has not talked to one school board member who disagrees with his position. 

"If you are going to have a gun on one of our campuses then you are going to have a badge as well," said Hanna. "The odds of something going terribly wrong with this (arming staff) far outnumber anything going right."

Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Seminole, Miami-Dade, Pasco, and Pinellas school districts, among the largest in the state, join Leon in saying they will not allow staff or teachers to carry guns.

Hendry and Putnam counties are going ahead with plans to implement the program.

More Ohio schools are allowing staff to bring guns to school to prevent a crisis, but much information about who is allowed to carry a weapon is secret.

Wakulla, Gadsden and Madison school superintendents plan to meet with their sheriffs this coming week.  Florida's 67 school districts are studying the language but must reach some decision by the time the new school year begins in August.

The bill was written in less than three weeks and then amended. Pearce and Madison County School Superintendent Karen Pickles are among the school leaders waiting for their sheriff’s “legal interpretation” of its requirements for law enforcement.

“Who will do the training? The sheriff or the community college?” asked Pickles.

On Friday morning Pickles was scanning the education budget to see how much money the Legislature gave Madison schools. The district has two SROs for its eight schools and had hoped to hire two more before the Stoneman Douglas shooting occurred.

“I need my teachers to teach. They are already overloaded,” said Pickles, who doesn’t want to arm teachers or staff.

But here is how the math works out for the panhandle county. The state will give it $387,000 for SROs in the upcoming school year. The FSA estimates it will cost Madison $800,000 to meet the minimum requirement of one SRO at each school and another $420,000 to equip the six additional deputies.

This coming week Pickles and scores of superintendents across Florida will huddle with their sheriffs and school boards and decide how to comply with the school public safety act.

The math the Legislature used to produce the state budget will factor into the decision whether their teachers, librarians and principals will carry concealed weapons while they walk the halls of their schools.

This photo taken from the Facebook page of Aaron Feis shows him with an unidentified girl. Feis, a football coach at Marjory Stonemason Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., was fatally shot when former student Nikolas Cruz opened fire at the school on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. (Facebook via AP) ORG XMIT: MH201

Inside information on the Aaron Feis Guardian Program 

Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act requires one safe-school officer at each school. Districts can meet the requirement with any combination of deputy/SRO or a guardian/staff and faculty.

Guardians training to carry guns on campus.

The training agreement between a school district and sheriff must:

·         Specify Criminal Justice Standards Training Commission certified                    instructors and include,

·         An 80-hour block based on CJSTC Law Enforcement Academy training model

·         16 hours in firearms precision pistol

·         8 hours of firearms discretionary shooting

·         8 hours on an active shooter or assailant response

·         8 hours on defensive tactics

·         12 hours of legal or high liability

·         Optional 16 hours of additional precision pistol training

 

Eligibility requirements for a school guardian:

·         Candidate must be licensed to carry a concealed weapon

·         Pass criminal background check, drug testing, and psychological evaluation

·         Achieve an 85-percent pass rate on firearms training

·         Complete 12 hours of diversity training

Reporter James Call can be reached at jcall@tallahassee.com.

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