School security is a community-wide interest.
Like other effluents, education mandates from Tallahassee flow downhill — and sometimes wind up swamping more than just school districts.
Consider the state’s well-meaning but ill-conceived new law requiring every K-12 school to have an armed security officer for the coming school year. It was part of a package of school safety reforms passed in the emotional aftermath of the Feb. 14 Parkland shooting, when the public was demanding action. The Legislature appropriated $97.5 million to help districts hire the additional officers, but that was akin to tossing a life preserver halfway to a drowning man and expecting him to swim the remaining distance.
Like most districts, Volusia County Schools is struggling to find the money to comply with the law. The district currently has 26 sheriff’s deputies assigned to local schools as resource officers, and has paid 100 percent of those costs over the last decade. But it must hire an additional 44 SROs while facing a $4 million budget deficit for 2018-19.(
(READ: Armed ‘guardians’ to staff Volusia County elementary schools next year)
At its meeting last Tuesday, the School Board approved hiring and training 44 new employees to serve as marshals in elementary schools. They won’t be sworn law enforcement officers with arrest powers. Over the summer they will receive 132 hours of training, 80 hours of which will be dedicated to firearms use, and will include instruction in active shooter or assailant scenarios, defensive tactics, and legal issues. They have to be ready to report by the opening of school Aug. 13.
That’s a crash course in a job with enormous responsibility, and potentially life-or-death consequences. The district hopes to recruit people with some experience in that area — reserve or retired military, police, beach patrol and corrections officers. Still, entrusting hastily trained civilians being paid $20 an hour is a gamble, particularly given the uncertainty about the deterrence of such a program, safety concerns, and a public divided on whether putting more guns on campuses is the correct response to Parkland.
(READ: Volusia County an outlier by not splitting costs for school resource deputies)
Volusia County is having to play the hand it was dealt. Blame the state for giving districts little time and insufficient funding to come up with better solutions.
There’s still the matter of paying for those marshals. The district already has cost-sharing agreements in place for SROs provided by the Daytona Beach, South Daytona, DeLand and Ormond Beach police departments, which will free up money for marshals. But school officials are hoping the county will agree to pay 30 percent of the cost of sheriff’s deputies, which this year totaled $1.25 million.
The News-Journal’s Cassidy Alexander reports that similar cost-sharing arrangements between counties and school districts are standard in Central Florida — out of 13 counties surveyed, only Marion doesn’t split the bill. Volusia County so far has shown little interest.
County Chair Ed Kelley recently told Alexander that what other counties do shouldn’t “set the tone” for Volusia County to follow. In response to School Board Member John Hill comparing the cost of SROs to the security deputies provide in court rooms, Kelley said that unlike the school district, “the courthouse doesn’t levy taxes.”
Kelley came up with reasons why the county doesn’t have to help fund school safety, but not why it shouldn’t or can’t.
School security is a community-wide interest, and thanks to the Legislature it suddenly has become more expensive. Every local government should pitch in to help keep students and faculty safe. The county should work out the details with the district to share the burden — and then join the schools in lobbying lawmakers to eliminate the mandate and/or increase state funding.