{"id":272902,"date":"2026-05-15T23:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T23:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272902\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T23:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T23:18:13","slug":"gov-desantis-signs-law-to-expand-school-guardian-program-to-florida-colleges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/272902\/","title":{"rendered":"Gov. DeSantis signs law to expand school guardian program to Florida colleges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A bill to protect Florida colleges prompted by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/news\/one-year-since-fatal-fsu-shooting\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/news\/one-year-since-fatal-fsu-shooting\/\">last year\u2019s Florida State University shooting<\/a> is now law. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The law expands Florida\u2019s school guardian program to include public colleges and universities. Teachers and staff will be able to carry weapons after training with the sheriff\u2019s office. The law also requires annual security risk assessments at every campus to find safety flaws and make improvements. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">At today\u2019s bill signing, the governor and Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas thanked lawmakers for helping make campuses safer. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cStudent safety has been my number one priority as commissioner of education. It\u2019s because of this governor\u2019s vision, and the vision to ensure that we are making every student has access to great opportunities, but doing it in a manner that they\u2019re not worried about some of these ancillary issues like their safety,\u201d Kamoutsas said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This law took effect as soon as the Governor signed it so it\u2019s possible that teachers could complete their training this summer and carry guns during the fall semester.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/05\/15\/gov-desantis-signs-law-expand-school-guardian-program-florida-colleges\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; A bill to protect Florida colleges prompted by last year\u2019s Florida State University shooting&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272903,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[18900,28,116723,19595,30,29,21635,634,115,91824,914],"class_list":["post-272902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-anastasios-kamoutsas","tag-florida","tag-florida-colleges-and-universities","tag-florida-education-commissioner","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gov-desantis","tag-local","tag-news","tag-school-guardian-program","tag-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272902","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=272902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}