Carroll ISD considers hiring armed school marshals
SOUTHLAKE, Texas - Carroll ISD is looking at another tool to boost campus security.
It already teams up with Southlake police to bring officers on campus in compliance with state law. But it is now looking at adding school marshals in events when a police officer cannot be on campus.
Last year, Carroll ISD had to hire an outside security company in order to have an armed officer on every campus.
Monday evening, the Carroll ISD school board considered a school marshal program where trained district employees would be designated armed marshals on campus.
Carroll ISD currently has Southlake police officers on each of its 11 campuses as school resource officers. The new plan wouldn’t change that.
"We would only use marshals in the event a SRO is not there, so 1% to 2 % of the school days," said Carroll ISD Superintendent Jeremy Glenn. "Southlake PD is the gold standard. They do an outstanding job covering the campuses."
If approved, the school marshals would have 80 hours of training certified by the state.
The board president clarified it would not arm current employees as marshals.
"We are not proposing to arm current staff. We are specifically looking at hiring, retired law enforcement, or military to cover campuses in the event an SRO is unavailable," said School Board president Cameron Bryan.
It’s similar to a school marshal plan approved by Plano ISD last year. New employees were hired specifically for security purposes in addition to the student resource officers Plano ISD already had.
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Some Southlake parents questioned the marshal program.
"Hopefully, you can work with the city administration and work with our police department to figure that out," one parent said. "If we need to expand the SRO program, we’re all in favor of that, even if that would mean raising taxes."
"We are in the middle of town halls and meetings around our budget crisis and school funding issues and all these things," another parent said. "So, to me, starting another program that would have costs associated with it seems like something we shouldn’t be doing right now."
There were also representatives from the organization Moms Demand Action in the audience Monday.
"My thoughts and prayers are that we don't go down the avenue where the only solution we have is more guns," said a person with the organization.
The marshal program was just a topic of discussion Monday night. No action was taken.
The district says other options may be considered at a later date.