PUTNAM COUNTY, Fla. — After multiple threats and arrests of students across the First Coast in the past week, First Coast News is on your side diving into the issue of school safety.
A program created by the Florida legislature after the shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that killed 17 people in 2018 has allowed trained school employees to carry firearms on campus.
Putnam County is one of the counties participating in the Chris Hixon, Coach Aaron Feis and Coach Scott Beigel Guardian Program. The sheriff’s chief deputy and superintendent of schools said Putnam County helped shape the legislation.
Guardians in the Putnam County schools are plain clothed district employees who carry concealed firearms. Guardians go through more training than a basic law enforcement officer graduating from a police academy, the chief deputy and superintendent said. Training requirements are outlined in the legislation.
“No one else knows who these people are besides myself and the sheriff and our immediate staff,” said Putnam County Schools Superintendent Rick Surrency.
Surrency said schools in Putnam County are now safer thanks to the guardian program. Signs at the front of schools alert people some employees are armed.
”I think just knowing that they’re there all the time, that preventive measure," Surrency said. "We don’t really look at them as somebody that’s gonna break up fights and handle student discipline. They are there solely in case there’s an active shooter.”
Surrency described times he said guardians have gotten involved.
"I do know there’s been a couple times where we’ve had students that have had some type of weapon on them, not active shooter, but have had a weapon, where we know that the person who’s gone in and intervened is a guardian,” he said.
Colonel Joseph Wells, chief deputy with the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, said thankfully the school district has not had a situation where a guardian has had to engage with a violent person like a school shooter.
"When violence knocks at the door or when evil knocks at the door, the more good people we can have to protect these students the better," Wells said. "Especially if they’re very, very well-trained, well-vetted competent individuals to deal with that, the more the better.”
Fifty-three counties participate in the guardian program, according to the Florida Department of Education.