Polk schools likely to employ armed ‘safety specialists’

WINTER HAVEN — When the new school year dawns Aug. 13, every public elementary school in Polk County likely will have an armed “safety specialist,” a uniformed guard trained to thwart an active-shooter situation.

The School District is finalizing details of the job description and how to finance the personnel. A presentation to the School Board is set for April 24, and if approved, district officials will launch a recruiting drive to hire as many as 90 safety specialists.

Polk School Superintendent Jacqueline Byrd and Polk Sheriff Grady Judd addressed the media Thursday at Judd’s Winter Haven headquarters to explain the evolving safety plan, a requirement of a new state mandate to heighten security in response to the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Parkland. Every school must have a designated armed officer or guardian when school is in session.

The law includes more funds to train and hire campus safety officers, but not enough to cover every school in the district, said Byrd, whose district already has approximately 45 school resource officers, who are sworn law-enforcement personnel. In Polk, an SRO’s starting salary is $44,962. They are still employees of law enforcement agencies, though the School District covers much of the cost.

But the new law also allows for two more options: volunteer “guardians” comprised of school staff who aren’t full-time instructors and undergo extensive training in firearms and safety measures; and a third category that falls somewhere between a guardian and a sworn officer.

Byrd said there isn’t support in the district for the guardian program, and the district can’t afford to hire 90 more SROs. So the safety specialist job is a better fit for Polk, she said. Though still a work in progress, the plan calls for SROs at middle and high schools, while safety specialists will be assigned to elementary campuses.

Safety specialists won’t have the arrest powers SROs have, Judd said, but they’ll get aggressive training in firearms and undergo thorough background screening. Specialists will be trained to recognize students dealing with mentalhealth issues and assist school staff, law enforcement and mental-health professionals with the appropriate measures, he said.