{"id":145718,"date":"2026-02-06T05:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145718\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T05:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T05:31:09","slug":"florida-bill-could-bring-armed-guardians-to-college-campuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/145718\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida bill could bring armed guardians to college campuses"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DELAND, Fla. \u2014\u00a0An effort to expand Florida\u2019s school guardian program to public colleges and universities is gaining momentum in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>A Florida bill would expand the school guardian program to public colleges and universities<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/757\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 757<\/a> allows select postsecondary employees to be trained and armed<br \/>\n<br \/>Supporters say the program improves prevention and response, while critics raise safety concerns<br \/>\n<br \/>The bill has passed its first House committee and continues through the legislative process<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving somebody on campus that\u2019s already looking for what\u2019s going on is huge,\u201d said Kevin Steinmann, a school guardian in Volusia County.<\/p>\n<p>Steinmann has been a guardian at his son\u2019s high school for three years. His job is to make sure students are safe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWalking the perimeter, checking gates, checking doors,\u201d Steinmann said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flsenate.gov\/Session\/Bill\/2026\/757\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">House Bill 757<\/a> would allow select postsecondary employees to be trained and armed, following last year\u2019s deadly shooting at Florida State University.<\/p>\n<p>While the proposal focuses on colleges and universities, Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood says the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vcsedu.org\/directory\/departments\/safety-and-security\/school-guardians\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">guardian program<\/a> is already in place across Volusia County\u2019s K-12 schools.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTheir main function in life is to stop an armed threat on campus,\u201d Chitwood said.<\/p>\n<p>The bill would authorize colleges and universities to participate in the guardian program, require sheriffs to assist with implementation, and mandate specific training, emergency response plans, and threat management processes.<\/p>\n<p>It also increases penalties for certain crimes near schools and requires colleges to promote a suspicious activity reporting tool for mobile devices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew it would be a good program, because you can never get enough law enforcement to cover every single school and get it what it needs. There had to be an alternative way to do this,\u201d Chitwood said.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters say the bill creates both prevention and response tools, while some raise concerns about confusion during an active shooter situation and how armed guardians could affect law enforcement response.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust to know that there are people there to help because colleges and schools are a target for predators,\u201d Steinmann said.<\/p>\n<p>The bill unanimously passed its first House committee and still has additional stops in the legislative process. It would still need to pass the full House and Senate before heading to the governor\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DELAND, Fla. \u2014\u00a0An effort to expand Florida\u2019s school guardian program to public colleges and universities is gaining momentum&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4318,3140,2967,6507,4995,115,139,99,277,15849,232,234,233,135,6390,835,2261],"class_list":{"0":"post-145718","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-app-latest-local-state-politics-stories","9":"tag-app-local-state-politics","10":"tag-app-public-safety","11":"tag-ashley-engle","12":"tag-crime-safety","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-orlando","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-public-safety","17":"tag-school-safety","18":"tag-tallahassee","19":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","20":"tag-tallahassee-news","21":"tag-tampa","22":"tag-topic-latest-public-safety-crime-stories","23":"tag-vod","24":"tag-volusia-county"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}