New Texas Law Makes It Mandatory For School Districts To Have An Armed Officer At Every School

In September, a new law will go into effect that will make it mandatory for Texas school districts to have an armed officer at every school.

If it is impossible for a district to do so, there must be a ‘good cause exception’ with a different option.

Although House Bill 3 was approved, it may be challenging for school districts across the state. This is because funding and the access to trained officers are limited.

Thus, some districts may choose to have a school marshal or a ‘school guardian.’ These individuals would be someone who is a part of the staff who is trained to carry a firearm at the particular school.

According to the Texas Education Agency, there are 9,000 schools in the state of Texas. It is estimated that an armed officer at one school would be $80,000. On the other hand, the state is only providing $15,000 to each school to fund the armed officer. This could affect the fund used to pay teachers’ salaries.

Not only will the state provide the $15,00 grant to each school, the security funding for each student will be raised by 28 cents for each student. So, if an elementary school has 300 pupils, that equals about $84.