When the school year starts next week,
the two public high schools in Pembroke Pines will have
resource officers on campus as usual,
but the city's elementary and middle schools will not.
They will have armed guardians providing security instead of Sr.
OS because of a dispute with the school district.
Education on 6 reporter Ariadser has that story.
It's just a drill. BSO deputies preparing for a nightmare
they hope will never occur again.
An active shooter inside a school.
We're prepared. We're doing the things that are important and
we're going to continue to test our capabilities before bad
things happen.
This exercise today did not include armed guardians.
I don't mean any disrespect to guardians,
but you're not police officers.
Pembroke Pines City Commissioner Mike Hernandez is furious that his
city's nine elementary schools and three middle schools will not
be protected by school resource officers this school year.
They will have armed guardians on campus instead.
I don't think a parent in the city of Pembroke
Pines is going to be OK
with just guardians. I I just don't believe it.
They do not have the relationships with administrators,
with parents, with students that the
SRO's have built over more than a decade.
In some cases, they're just like sworn officers through US.
Superintendent Doctor Howard Hepburn points out that in the five
years the Guardian program has existed,
many guardians do establish relationships at schools the way their
SRO counterparts do.
The guardians also get extensive training to understand how to
react during emergency situations.
So, and also we have other cities that we actually
utilize armed guardians instead of Sr.
OS too. So we're, we're,
we're not,
you know, concerned about any,
any lack of security. Hepburn said the school district increased
the amount it pays police agencies for Sr.
OS from 64 to
$113,000 per officer, but Pembroke Pines says it's losing more
than
$2,000,000 with that deal, so the district will provide the
cheaper alternative.
The Sheriff's Office trains the guardians and supervises the program.
A guardian will never substitute the
wealth of knowledge and experience that a law enforcement officer
has that comes in with all the other skill sets.
But what we've given them is the skill set to
be productive and stop these threats if it arrives on
our campus.
And the issue will come to a head here at
Pembroke Pines City Hall.
On Wednesday night. At the city Commission meeting,
Commissioner Hernandez will make a motion asking the city's Police
Department to create its own SRO division within the department
and then use those officers to provide rotating police presence
at the city's elementary and middle schools this school year.
Left to see how that goes on Wednesday,
we're at Pembroke Pines City Hall.
Ariadser, NBC6 News.