District outlines steps to meet new school‑safety law, including a school guardian program and building upgrades

Tony Furtiber, the district’s school security specialist, briefed the board on House Bill 84 (2024) and more recent amendments (House Bill 40, 2025) that impose new statewide school‑safety requirements on school districts and other agencies.

Furtiber summarized the law’s major components: requirements for emergency communication, expanded threat reporting and integration between SafeUT and the state intelligence center (SIAC), district safety needs assessments, video surveillance standards, panic alert devices, and designation of several school safety roles. He said the state security chief’s office and local sheriff’s office are coordinating training and technical support.

Two roles required by the law were described in detail:

- A school safety specialist (referred to in the law as a district or building-level designee) who will lead assessments, drills, reunification planning and coordination with local law enforcement; the district plans one specialist (S‑4) per school. Furtiber said these positions may be filled by assistant principals or counselors in some buildings.

- A school guardian: a volunteer, district employee who may be armed and who must meet state fitness‑to‑carry and criminal‑background standards, complete a multi‑day training program, and accept annual and biannual refreshers. Furtiber said guardians cannot be classroom teachers unless the district requests and receives a state exemption; the law envisions guardians who are employees but not responsible for a classroom. The district plans to seek exemptions if an experienced employee (for example, a coach or PE teacher) is a good fit and the district can show adequate backup supervision.

Furtiber described administrative and technical work already done: the district completed the required 2024 safety needs assessments; measured all school windows for proposed window film; upgraded cameras and arranged dispatch access to live feeds; and researched wearable panic devices that would alert dispatch, activate select cameras and provide situational data to first responders. He said some timelines changed with the HB40 amendment—safety assessments will be required every three years instead of annually, and certain building hardening deadlines were clarified.

On money and timing, Furtiber said the district applied for a 2025 safety grant and was awarded limited funds to upgrade specific building features (for example, gun safes). He noted that statewide demand was large and the state planned staged funding; some items, such as window film, were pushed out to 2030 in the amendment. Furtiber gave sample costs and operational considerations: the fit‑to‑carry psychological assessment will be done by vendors and is expected to cost a few hundred dollars per guardian; the state offers a one‑time stipend (about $500) for guardians to purchase a secure firearm safe but that will not fully cover training, ammunition or equipment costs.

Furtiber said the state requires guardians’ identities to be kept restricted for safety reasons; only the guardian, school administrator, the district security specialist and district administration will know who a guardian is. Training will include a three‑day curriculum (classroom, range, scenario day) run with sheriff’s office partners. The district intends to offer training this summer and to begin implementing staffing and equipment steps ahead of the law’s hard deadlines.

Board members asked about operational details—whether guardians must be onsite “bell to bell” (Furtiber said the law anticipates daily coverage and the district hopes to recruit at least two guardians per school to create redundancy), how staff time and ammunition costs will be covered (some training costs are district expenses; the state stipend is limited), and how the district will handle public communication while protecting guardian confidentiality.

Furtiber presented other district goals: extend two‑way radio communications for every campus (cell networks can fail in an emergency), build stockpiled disaster supplies, expand NIMS incident‑command training for administrators, and expand local CSTAG (Comprehensive School Threat Assessment Guidelines) training and threat‑assessment capacity. He said the district will provide legislators with cost estimates the board requested and continue to seek state support.