ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Orange County School Board discussed the possibility of 30 schools losing school resource officers beginning in August 2025.
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The district said this is all because five law enforcement agencies told OCPS they need more money to cover the cost of officers.
The five municipalities include Apopka, Winter Park, Ocoee, Winter Garden and Windermere.
However, the district said it doesn’t have the money. School board members said they are forced to look at replacing these officers with guardians, who are not sworn officers.
Many said they didn’t even want to be having this conversation of replacing them with guardians. All school board members said they want to keep resource officers.
“It’s a little scary that our children’s safety can be negotiated especially based on dollars,” said Laura Buck.
Buck was one of several parents who sat in Tuesday’s school board meeting, concerned about the idea of replacing school resource officers with guardians in some schools.
Guardians are not sworn officers. It can be anyone who completes the Sheriff’s Office program, which includes 144 hours of training. At the end of the training, they can carry a firearm on campus. Their sole job is to defend the school from intruders.
“It does not qualify them to make that life-or-death decision,” chair Teresa Jacobs said about guardians. “It frightens me beyond comprehension that is an option the state even gives us.”
These guardians also don’t have arrest authority. They can’t break up a fight. They also don’t have access to numerous law enforcement resources. It’s just some of the many reasons Moms Demand Action insists on keeping officers.
“Just the optics of having police on campus, students will hopefully think twice,” Buck said.
But the decision to place guardians in schools will come down to contracts and money.
Already, the district has offered up to a 25 percent increase from last school year, $75,000 per officer.
These five jurisdictions say they need more money to cover the cost of officers.
The school district says they already are nearly $17 million dollars in the red with security costs. If they paid more for the officers, they would need to seek funding for nearly two million dollars.
“It feels like a slap in the face that they want this high of a raise,” said school board member Alicia Farrant. “We can’t even give that raise to our teachers and administrators.”
Apopka Police, one of the agencies who hasn’t signed the deal, says they want officers in schools, but they also need to be good steward of taxpayer dollars. That’s why they haven’t agreed with the district’s terms.
“It would be fiscally irresponsible to our residents to accept only a minimal increase in subsequent years that does not adequately address our current budgetary need,” Apopka Police said in a statement Friday.
The district will have to decide if they’ll start the guardian program by January in order to train and recruit people.
Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Orlando Police, Maitland Police, and Eatonville Police have already signed the contract, saying they will supply officers for schools in their jurisdiction for the next two years.
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