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SALT LAKE CITY — A new bill being pushed by the state Legislature's School Security Task Force would require every school in Utah to have an armed school employee present on campus whenever school is in session.
The bill would require every public, charter and private school to have at least one armed security personnel at the school whenever class is in session.
This could include a uniformed school resource officer, a school safety and security officer provided by local law enforcement and hired by the school district, or a contracted security guard who would be allowed to conceal or open carry a firearm on school grounds.
It could also include school employees.
The bill would require a school employee who isn't a principal, teacher, or someone who primarily works with students to be trained as a school guardian, which would be a "volunteer, armed school employee who has received 84 hours of firearms, deescalation, basic trauma, first aid and school security training."
The school security training would be overseen by county sheriff's offices.
Following a school shooting hoax that swept across the Beehive State in March, the Utah Legislature created the School Security Task Force to address safety and security concerns in Utah schools.
On Wednesday it recommended amendments to HB61 — which creates school safety requirements, including a state security chief position within the Utah Department of Public Safety and the School Security Task Force, among other measures — to the Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee.
"The task force was very specifically charged with making these recommendations to us," said Rep. Ryan Wilcox, R-Ogden, sponsor of HB61. "Incidents and severity of the threats that we've discussed have been clearly increasing, unfortunately here in Utah as well. It's our responsibility to make sure that we do the things to protect the most vulnerable population base that we have."
HB61 would also create the position of state security chief — who would be responsible for state-level oversight of school safety and security issues — and Wilcox said an offer was made and accepted Monday by an unnamed individual to fill the position.
"The whole intent of this piece is to make sure that if somebody decides to threaten a Utah school, there's any number of folks that are prepared to make sure that they aren't able to hurt anybody," Wilcox said. "These are folks that are already there at the school, who have been trained and qualified and who trained twice a year in their school, in their own facilities."
While the committee voted 11-1 in favor of passing out the school safety amendments as a committee bill, with Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City, casting the lone vote in opposition, some members still had questions about it.
"I am a parent and if I looked at all the people at my school, there are many people that I would not feel comfortable having as a guardian at my school," said Sen. Kathleen Riebe, D-Cottonwood Heights. "Is that public knowledge who the guardians are?"
I personally just have concerns with having security guards in our schools and making our schools more, from my perception, like prisons because somebody has access to a gun that shouldn't have access to a gun.
–Rep. Angela Romero, D-Salt Lake City
Wilcox said "it would be smart of us" to not publicly announce who the school guardians are. He also noted that guardians are only activated in the event of a threat and have no law enforcement authority outside of that.
Romero said she's somebody "that doesn't always feel like bringing more guns to a school is a good idea."
"I personally just have concerns with having security guards in our schools and making our schools more, from my perception, like prisons because somebody has access to a gun that shouldn't have access to a gun," Romero said.
Wilcox contended the point of the legislation isn't to just bring more guns into schools.
"This is to bring more trained people. This isn't just random guns. This isn't just, 'Hey, anybody with a concealed carry does this,'" Wilcox said. "This is next level. This is preparation (and) planning."
Clark Aposhian, chairman of the Utah Shooting Sports Council and prominent gun rights activist, said he and the council he represents are in favor of the legislation.
"We think that it addresses the failures that, unfortunately, schools have because of their vulnerable, soft targets and they're very attractive targets to those murderers because of that fact," Aposhian said.
Though they questioned certain aspects of the bill, both Romero and Riebe said they don't want to critique or nitpick the work the task force has engaged in to hopefully make schools safer.
Much of the issue around gun violence and school shootings is outside of the control of the School Security Task Force and more representative of larger societal issues relating to gun access, Riebe said.
"I cannot not say this. We have to start limiting access to weapons," she said.
A full summary of the school safety amendments can be read here.
