by Jackie Llanos, Florida Phoenix
Child care center employees can undergo training to carry guns at work under a law Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Wednesday.
The change is part of an expansion of the school guardian program that already allows public and private school employees to act as law enforcement when an active shooter enters their campus. The Florida Legislature established the program after the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.
Currently, 53 counties participate in the program, which requires volunteer school employees to undergo a 144-hour training, according to a legislative analysis of the bill, SB 1470, which lawmakers passed unanimously.
“I think that’s going to be something that people are going to like,” DeSantis said of the program expansion during a Wednesday press conference at Winter Haven Senior High.
Additionally, the law revises school door locking requirements, appeasing sheriffs’ concerns. The new law allows classrooms to use temporary locks, requires school safety protocol to apply for 30 minutes before and after school, and exempts door locking for career and technical education classrooms where ventilation is required.
“I think what the Legislature did is they tweaked this. They made sure that, yes, we want to be able to create blocks to keep bad guys out, but we also want it to be practical,” the governor said. “We want to make sure people are able to do their daily tasks and get to where they need to go.”
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd previously told Florida Phoenix that the door-locking law passed in 2024 was “clunky and difficult to understand and easy to violate it even without the intent to violate it.”
DeSantis signed two other bills. HB 279 brings harsher penalties for false reporting of a crime, and HB 1099 gives police officers discretion over whether they should immediately arrest someone in a hospital, nursing home, or assisted living facility.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
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