Schools to bring in armed civilians as patrol
San Marcos school leaders have signed off on hiring armed marshals to protect students in the district’s eight elementary schools.
The plan, approved this week by the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District’s board, calls for hiring a school marshal to serve as a safety officer at each elementary school campus in the district. The marshals’ responsibilities would include patrolling the campuses, performing safety checks and audits, and conducting safety training drills.
The board’s decision comes in the wake of the 2022 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that killed 19 students and two teachers.
A school marshal “would in essence take the place of the hired off-duty officers who presently reside on campuses. They will not wear uniforms but they will carry a concealed handgun and be a (school district) employee,” according to school board documents. “A marshal’s primary role is to engage and protect during an active attack.”
To be hired as marshals, applicants would be required to have certification from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. The marshals will also take part in regular training through the San Marcos Police Department, according to district officials and San Marcos police Chief Stan Standridge, who spoke during the Monday school board meeting.
Standridge said 74 Texas school districts are operating marshal programs, with about 300 marshals currently in place. There are about 1,200 school districts in the state.
The plan calls for each school marshal to carry a concealed handgun and for their identity to be confidential, according to school board documents.
The board members voted 6-1 to have the district pursue a three-year pilot program using school marshals, but they did not set a date for the program to begin. The district said it expects to spend more than $500,000 per year on the program over the three years.
In a presentation to board members, Doug Wozniak, director of school safety for the San Marcos CISD, said the plan does not call for arming teachers or other district employees.
San Marcos school board members said they prefer the school marshal program over the idea of arming teachers or adding fencing around campuses or metal detectors at school entrances — something board member Brian Shanks
compared to “minimum security prisons.”
“I think that’s a worse experience for our kids,” Shanks said.
Bonnie Bevers, youth pastor at San Marcos United Methodist Church and a volunteer for the school district, was among those opposed to having a marshal on campuses whose identity would not be provided to students and parents.
“As a family and youth pastor, I spend my days working with students in San Marcos. … I cannot count the number of conversations we have had about their fears of guns on their school campuses,” Bevers said. “Having armed law enforcement officers on the school campuses adds a sense of safety and security to their minds. They can see who is there to protect them. … In arming school district employees and asking them to remain anonymous and to carry a concealed weapon, we are adding to the anxiety of our students.”
Standridge, the San Marcos police chief, said he agreed the best solution would be to have more uniformed school resource officers on the district’s campuses. He said the city doesn’t have the resources to make that happen, mainly due to swift population growth in San Marcos that has contributed to an increase in violent crime.
If school officials asked for more school resource officers, “even if I had the additional officers, we would not assign them to campuses,” Standridge said. “Why? Because we need them in the field responding to 911 to mitigate this remarkable increase in violent crime.”
The San Marcos school district serves about 8,000 students and has an annual budget of nearly $100 million.