DCPS: There won’t be enough school safety assistants in place by start of the upcoming year

In response to the Parkland School shooting, Florida requires all school districts to have added security and Duval County Public Schools says they won't have enough additional security in place by the start of the 2018-19 school year.

DCPS Police Director Michael Edwards says the district has only hired 24 of the 105 assistants needed for elementary schools for the new school year.

“By the time we reach the end of our first nine weeks, we will have somebody at every one of our schools.” Edwards says.

DCPS says the 24 hired are undergoing training. DCPS says once the school safety assistants are hired, they begin training in 3 training programs that happen between July 9th and August 27th.

The district says they’ve received about 370 applications for the armed school assistant position.

Edwards says the district will have hired the rest of the assistants needed by August 23rd. DCPS says the new school year begins August 13th.

To fill in the gaps, school board member Scott Shine tells us the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office and DCPS Police will help until the district can get the rest of the added security trained and in place.

We are working with the state to find out if there will be any sort of repercussions for school districts who don’t meet the states standards on security. We are waiting to hear back.

In May we told you when DCPS moved forward with plans to put armed school assistants in place in order to meet the standards set up by the state.