House Bill 3 was passed by the State of Texas, requiring all school districts in the state to have an armed security guard at each school. Ector County schools will each have an armed security officer by the beginning of next school year.
According to an article by CBS7 News, Ector County Independent School District was not able to fill all of its vacant positions by the beginning of the current school year, but they have been making some progress. ECISD Chief of Police Jeff Daniels noted, “We started the year off with six positions that were vacated. And we were able to fill those, and the school board voted to add an additional 30 to meet the mandate. And out of the 30, we’ve been able to add seven to today.”
The CBS7 News article also included details on attitudes of job applicants. Daniels said, “A lot of the applicants have told us that this is where they want to be. This is the type of policing they want to do. they want to go out and they want to help kids. They want to make our schools safer; they realize the targets that they can be. And they want to be the ones to make the difference.”
According to the Safe and Sound Security website, 43% of all public schools had at least one security professional on campus in 2014. In 2016, this percentage increased to 56.5. The site also notes, “Based on research conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics from 2015 to 2016, facts about armed guards in schools statistics show that a total of 45.4% of primary schools had at least one or more security officers present on site due to an increase in school shooting and compromise on school safety.”