The Comal Independent School District plans to have armed school resource officers at all its campuses in the 2023-24 school year, district officials said Thursday.
While the Texas Legislature passed a bill that requires all school districts to have at least one armed guard at every campus starting in September, Comal ISD had already made a commitment to have a resource officer at each campus.
“Throughout the previous year, we heard from parents and staff about their desire to have armed personnel dedicated to each of our elementary campuses,” said Comal ISD Board President Russ Garner. “In April, we asked Dr. Chapman to bring to us in closed session options for accomplishing that goal. It was during that April meeting that we made the commitment as a Board to have an SRO at all our campuses to provide the level of security that our community desires to have in our schools.”
The district worked with several law enforcement agencies including the Comal County Sheriff’s Office, Bexar County Sheriff’s Office, Guadalupe County Sheriff’s Office, and the Bulverde Police Department to secure trained and licensed personnel.
The district said while it plans to have law enforcement presence at each campus during the first week of school, the elementary school campuses won’t be staffed full-time until later in the school year.
“The biggest challenge to accomplishing our goal of having an SRO at every elementary school is securing properly trained and qualified individuals,” said Mario De La Rosa, Comal ISD Executive Director of Safety and Security. “Our law enforcement partners are aggressively recruiting, hiring, and training reserve deputies to fill these crucial roles. In the meantime, we will be rotating the SROs we do have at the elementary campuses until we secured enough to have one at each school every day.”
Also on KSAT.com:
New Braunfels teen in ICU after being crushed by tree limb in New Orleans’ French QuarterStage 3 drought restrictions set for some areas of Bandera, Blanco, Comal, Kendall, Medina countiesNew Braunfels man tried to hire hitman to kill Comal County sheriff’s deputy, FBI says