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School board hears HB 84 compliance update; SROs, badge entry and panic-button pilots underway
Summary
Board heard a safety briefing tied to Utah House Bill 84 and learned the district is advancing badge-entry systems, piloting panic buttons, planning backup power upgrades and preparing to scale SRO coverage required for 2025-26. Ballistic-film technical specs and costs remain unresolved.
The Morgan County School District Board on Tuesday received an extensive update on implementing state school-safety requirements under House Bill 84 and on district-level steps to strengthen campus security.
Superintendent (unnamed) said the district invited its SRO and county security chief, Jamie Boots, and district safety director Aaron Croft to brief trustees on current compliance work and remaining challenges. "The state legislature passed House Bill 84 earlier this year, which imposed a lot of additional security and safety requirements on all school districts in the state of Utah," said Jamie Boots.
Aaron Croft reviewed the operational measures the district has begun or planned: reducing and securing entry points at schools, installing badge/ID scanning systems, adding electronic locks that allow front-office staff to control access, and piloting panic buttons at the middle school with plans to integrate those alerts with dispatch. Croft noted several high-cost items remain outstanding and depend on state guidance and funding. "The biggest issues that we will have to come in compliance with... are ballistic film, SROs, and the backup power," Croft said, describing ballistic film policy as still under development by the state.
Board members pressed for clarity on ballistic-film standards and on the timeline for mandated SRO coverage for the 2025-26 school year. Croft said the state has not finalized film-height or performance thresholds and warned that some districts that installed lower-grade film had it rejected as noncompliant. Boots told the board the district had recently hosted representatives from the Department of Public Safety and received positive feedback on the district's early progress and construction activity.
The board heard that, in addition to physical upgrades, the district is addressing communications and continuity issues: district schools that lack backup generators would be vulnerable to sustained outages, and the district must determine how to maintain communications and operations during extended power loss.
What happens next: staff will return with more detailed cost estimates and a compliance plan as state rules are finalized; SRO staffing needs for 2025-26 remain a priority item for budgeting and recruitment.
