SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – During a Seminole County school board meeting Tuesday evening, the board reaffirmed security procedures and guidelines in Seminole County schools.
This reaffirmation followed public suggestions toward arming teachers and starting a Guardian Program, according to the school district.
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Capt. Tracey Fortenberry, a deputy with the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office, stated the current policies in response to last week’s elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Fortenberry said the security procedures are unlike those in Uvalde, where officers waited more than an hour to breach the classroom that the gunman barricaded himself in.
“We will go toward the threat,” he said. “We will eliminate the threat. That’s what we are trained to do.”
Two school resource officers or deputies are posted at each high school in the county, with one in each elementary school and one in each middle school, according to Fortenberry.
He added that “floaters” go back and forth between middle and high schools, so there might be three officers or deputies at a given time in some schools.
“We train totally different from some of these other agencies. We have professionals,” he said. “We have people that know what to do when an incident occurs. We continue to upgrade our training. We continue to provide training to the teachers and to the administrators at these schools, so everyone knows how to respond, what to do — not just on an active assailant but anything that occurs at these schools.