BREVARD COUNTY, Fla..-- Since Brevard County Schools voted in May to begin implementing a new plan to hire armed security guards after deciding that current school staff would not be allowed to carry weapons on campus.
- Brevard County plans for 28 schools to get security specialists
- Full-time district employees, armed & will serve as special sheriff's deputies
- County determined to get specialists at more schools
The clock has been ticking and in about a month kids will be returning to school. According to Brevard County schools, they are planning to fill 28 positions with school security specialists.
Out of 100 applicants, 37 were ruled out The School Board Says. The ones that have passed out screening process will move on to the sheriff's office to go through background checks and physiological evaluations. Those who pass that round will then move on to the S.T.O.P. training also known as Sheriff-Trained Onsite Training Program, which is a five week program that involved about 150 of training during a five week period. Students can start to expect to see these new faces a few weeks into the school year.
"There is a portion of our community that still wants an SRO, and we are determined to do that especially in our larger campuses," says Brevard County School Board Member Tina Descovich.
The school board voted to hire school safety and security specialists, a full-time district employee who will be armed and serve as a special sheriff's deputy.
The school board says the decision is a compromise after critics complained about the original plan to allow principals, cafeteria workers and janitors to carry guns to stop a potential school shooter.
Page Worrells says she's glad her daughters' school, Holland Elementary, is getting an SRO. After the school board vote in May, she says she was ready to pick up and mover her family if her kids school wasn't one of the 28 schools getting a security specialists.
"I felt fortunate. We would have rethought where I lived based on that," explains Worrells.
The specialists will be paid about forty thousand a year they would be considered employees of the school district, but trained and outfitted by the sheriff's office.