Polk County Public Schools will interview applicants for their new School Safety Guardian program beginning Thursday, May 3 through Tuesday, May 15.
Working with the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the school expects to hire and train 90 School Safety Guardians to enhance campus security in accordance with a new state law.
District leaders said they have until August to place the guardians in schools.
The position pays $30,000 a year plus benefits.
School Safety Guardians will be armed, uniformed district employees.
Guardians will be responsible for working with the district’s Safe Schools division to provide security to campuses, conduct necessary drills, oversee crime prevention initiatives and programs with students, conduct surveillance and other security-related tasks. They are not intended to work with student discipline nor have any law enforcement authority.
Elementary schools will have a School Safety Guardian. Middle and high schools will continue to have a school resource officer from a local law enforcement agency.
There is a current need to fill 85 School Safety Guardian positions. However, the school district intends to train 90 individuals to ensure coverage when someone is ill, on vacation or otherwise unavailable.
Teddra Porteous, Associate Superintendent of Human Resources, stressed the position is not a law enforcement job.
“It’s safety drills. It’s all about protection. We’re not trying to break up fights or anything like that. It’s literally about protecting our students and our staff,” she told News Chanel 8. “Are you prepared to give your own life to defend our students lives? That’s really what it is.”
Porteous said they plan to interview 400 people over the next six scheduled days.
“We’ve seen everyone from recent college graduates, to secretaries in our current school system, to bus drivers, to armed security guards, ex military or ex police officers, sheriff’s office employees. So it’s really just a gamut of people.”
“This is a process to make sure that you have the personality to confront an active shooter. Keep in mind the active shooter could be a child,” Sheriff Grady Judd said.
“We make sure that they have detailed backgrounds, psychological checks, drug screens and the training. So, it’s not a matter of finding 90 or 91 people. They’re probably going to have to find 300 or 400 in order to find 91 to successfully pass all of that.”
The program will cost about $3.69 million, which is more than the $3.3 million that the state is providing in Safe Schools funding.
The Polk County School District will make up the $400,000 shortfall but said this was their only option, because they could not afford to hire more School Resource Officers.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office will handle the tactical training for the Guardians, and the school will handle the professional training.
