Utah schools to implement new safety law
Aug 23, 2024, 1:19 PM | Updated: 3:33 pm
OREM — As the new school year gets underway, safety is top of mind. A new safety law is in effect and will be implemented over the next year.
The Alpine School District said this school safety law includes wearable devices to make sure teachers are safe, plus, armed school guardians.
“At Alpine School District, we are used to implementing big programs to meet the needs of our students,” Rich Stowell, Communications Director with the Alpine School District, said.
Stowell said while they are still learning the timeline, they know an armed guardian will need to be in place at every school by the 2025-2026 school year.
As for who could be an armed guardian, he said a principal or teacher would not be eligible, as they focus on teaching. But a custodian or office staff member could be an armed guardian.
Armed school guardians would be employees of the school district, and would be in addition to any school resource officer.
Training is a key piece
“We’ll look to law enforcement to provide the best training, so we can focus on implementing the law and making sure kids are safe in their schools,” Stowell said.
The goal of the school guardian is to lessen any threat to student’s lives by an intruder in the school.
“We know our students learn best when they are safe,” Stowell told KSL TV. “We know that our teachers can teach best when they are safe, so our operations team is focused on making sure we can meet the requirements of the safety law in a responsible way, and keep our focus on children learning,”
Stowell said their operations team is conducting safety assessments at each of their sites within the district to make sure they understand what needs are there, and how close they are to meeting those needs.
