Safety FAQs

The state is providing $15,000 per campus and an additional $.28 per student to fund this new requirement. That equates to around $288,500 in additional funding for the district. 

The initial cost to add one new SRO is approximately $208,000 when you factor in start-up costs like vehicles, technology, and equipment, in addition to salary.

It depends on the position.

In order for a police officer to become a School Resource Officer, there is additional training they must receive from the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE). TCOLE provides extensive training for these officers, including a licensure and ongoing training from the Texas School Safety Center. This is on top of the extensive training they receive through the police academy to be eligible to be a commissioned peace officer.

School Marshals would be school personnel hired solely for the purpose of protecting student and staff from physical harm. They would not provide any law enforcement duties. A School Marshal would receive TCOLE licensing and certification, including a psychological exam and 80 hours of instruction. They would also be required to have their conceal and carry permit.

In order to be in compliance by the bill’s effective date, September 1, the board must either hire officers/SROs through the local police department, start their own district police department, or pass a resolution with an alternative plan that shows progress towards meeting the requirement.

While there are obstacles inherent with the state’s lack of funding for this mandate, there are also not currently enough qualified peace officers to serve as SROs on each of our campuses.

The board resolution allows the district to be in compliance by stating their intent to build, and beginning the work to implement, their alternative plan to meet the armed guard requirement.

Whatever balance remains will come from the district’s fund balance. Of course, the district will be pursuing grant opportunities as they become available.

Now that the resolution has been passed, the district will begin creating a school marshal program and hiring for that program in order to meet this requirement. It is the intention of the district that school marshals are a stop gap to meet this requirement until we are able to hire enough SROs for each of our campuses.

TEA has not published a deadline of when districts that pass a resolution have to be in compliance with the armed guard requirement. However, we are committed to a process that is timely, yet intentional, about finding the best people to work collaboratively with our SROs to provide safety and security for our students and staff.

School Marshals are school personnel hired solely for the purpose of protecting students and staff from physical harm. A School Marshal would receive TCOLE (Texas Commission on Law Enforcement)  licensing and certification, including a psychological exam and 80 hours of instruction. They would also be required to have their conceal and carry permit. They would not provide any law enforcement duties.  

School Guardians are school employees who have been authorized by the board to conceal carry. These individuals’ primary position on the campus would not be the safety and security of the campus. They would need to hold their handgun license and would only be required to receive an additional 15-20 hours of specialized training by DPS.

While TEA does not provide a deadline for compliance, GISD is committed to a timely process that allows us the careful selection of qualified and vetted individuals for these important positions. Our district team will be working collaboratively with Georgetown Police Department and lean on their expertise and experience as we tackle this new terrain.

We deeply appreciate the value that our current SROs provide to all of our campuses, including our elementary schools. As plans are made on how to address the armed guard requirement, we will work with GPD on ways that our SROs can continue to provide support and a positive influence at each of our elementary schools.

The requirement specifies that campuses must have an armed guard on campus during each day when school is in session. The district is still developing the daily schedule and will not share specific details with the general public due to the sensitive nature of this information.

It is important to note that School Marshals do not have the training to provide law enforcement responsibilities. Their primary purpose is to be an extra set of eyes and ears on the campus to prevent unsafe actions and to intervene during an event until local law enforcement arrives.

While housed primarily at our elementary campuses, GISD intends to utilize the school marshals at various campuses to allow our SROs to continue supporting each of our campuses in a manner similar to previous years.

GISD currently contracts with GPD to provide 6 School Resource Officers (SROs) and 1 SRO sergeant for the district. SROs are assigned to several campuses in the same local vicinity to offer support with safety-related tasks. Our SROs provide safety-related support to our campus administrators and contribute to a safe campus environment through their positive relationships with our students and staff.

You can learn more about your child’s SRO here.

Our first steps in creating our plan is researching best practices and recommendations from districts that have already implemented school marshals. Once we have finalized the position requirements, job description, and salary, we will post the positions online.

The district will be providing regular updates towards our progress in meeting this requirement during monthly board meetings. If you are unable to attend the meeting, you can access the meetings online or in board briefs.

There has been no guidance from TEA on what the alternative plan must address.

TEA has not published a deadline of when districts that pass a resolution have to be in compliance with the armed guard requirement.

A district is considered in compliance if it has taken the necessary steps to initiate an upgrade of the facility component to ensure compliance and the contractor or supplier has been procured and has provided a time frame when the upgrade will be completed.

TEC § 37.0814 refers to “each district campus” and states that “The board must ensure that at least one armed security officer is present during regular school hours at each district campus.” The Code uses the term “campus,” but that term is not defined. TEA has indicated they intend to define it through the rule-making process (or perhaps an FAQ). Until they do so, the term is up for debate.

The district's first priority in an emergency situation is always the safety and security of students and staff, and parents will be alerted as soon as possible. Georgetown ISD has a number of communication tools that are used to notify parents in case of an emergency. They range from texts to automated phone calls to emails or news alerts, and different tools are used depending on the situation. One of the most important things parents can do is to make sure their child's school has the most current contact information including cell phone, emergency contacts, home phone and home address. You can review and update contact information by logging into Skyward.

Each of our schools conducts a number of different drills several times a year so students and staff have an opportunity to practice what they need to do in different kinds of emergency situations. The exercises range from lockdown drills to fire drills.  Georgetown ISD uses the Standard Response Protocol or SRP, which you can view at http://iloveuguys.org

Drills are held in cooperation with the Georgetown Police Department.  They take part in these drills to ensure they are very familiar with our buildings, our staff, and our procedures.
After the drills, district staff and law enforcement officials conduct a debrief to ensure proper procedures and protocols were followed and to identify ways to improve.

Recently, SRP changed the wording from Lockout to Secure.  While the elements of these drills are nearly identical, you will notice that signage and wording in our correspondence have been altered to reflect this change.  

The differentiation between Secure (formerly known as Lockout) and Lockdown is a critical element in SRP.

A Secure (Lockout) recovers all students from outside the building, secures the building perimeter and locks all outside doors. This would be implemented when there is a threat or hazard outside of the building. Criminal activity, dangerous events in the community, or even a vicious dog on the playground would be examples of a Secure (Lockout) response. While the Secure (Lockout) response encourages greater staff situational awareness, it allows for educational practices to continue with little classroom interruption or distraction.

A Lockdown is a classroom-based protocol that requires locking the classroom door, turning off the lights and placing students out of sight of any corridor windows. In classrooms with high volumes of glass, students and staff are taught to evacuate away from the threat. Student action for students who remain in traditional classrooms during Lockdown is to remain quiet.

Yes, absolutely. The SRP is designed as an enhancement to any safety plan. It covers critical incidents by standardizing vocabulary so stakeholders can easily understand the status and respond quickly when an unforeseen event occurs. It works well with ADD, a safety program being implemented in our schools with assistance from the Georgetown Police Department.

Avoid | Deny | Defend™  has been developed as an easy to remember method for individuals to follow and works in tandem with our Standard Response Protocol.  

Since 2002, the  Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training (ALERRT)™ Program at Texas State University has been used to train law enforcement officers across the nation in how to rapidly respond to dangerous active threat situations.  This has resulted in shortened response times. Georgetown Police Department is working now to do ADD training on our campuses to improve safety response measures for all.

• Each school conducts all required safety drills, including more than the required number of lockdown drills so students and staff can practice what they need to do in different emergency situations. School Resource Officers are highly involved in the completion and after-action review of these drills.

• Anyone visiting a school, including parents and volunteers, is required to check in at the office, scan their license, and receive a visitor badge.

• Georgetown ISD staff have been trained to recognize the warning signs and protective factors for students who are at risk to harm to self or others.  School counselors and school-based therapists are prepared to intervene and support the mental health needs of students and families.

• The district has implemented keyless entry access in schools, which makes it easier to secure school buildings.

• The district's past three bond cycles included projects to improve safety and security including secured entrances for campuses, a radio system, alert apps, and a secured walkway between GHS and the annex/Richarte. Learn more about GISD’s bond projects at www.georgetownisd.org/bond.

• The Stay Safe! Anonymous Online Reporting System allows students or parents to anonymously report incidents that may endanger individuals or the school. www.georgetownisd.org/staysafe.

All of our elementary and middle schools are outfitted with secure entrance-ways that require visitors to enter a school through one main entry point, sign in and get permission to access the rest of the campus.

Still have questions? Submit it to us through Let's Talk, an online dialogue tool, and we'll respond.