Come fall, some North Texas teachers and school administrators will be armed, and many of them began training on Monday.
The school marshals could be teachers, coaches or any school employee, and they could be in any independent school district or charter school if the district wants them. It's the first program of its kind under a new Texas law modeled after the air marshal program.
"A regular patrol man, if you will, is going to take three to five minutes on the average, three minutes to respond to a call of an active shooter event. This is going to try to mitigate that,” said Raphael Perea, instructor at Tarrant County College Police Academy.
This was all set in motion by State Rep. Jason Villalba, who says he started creating what is now known as the Protection of Texas Children Act after hearing about the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.
"Just because they are carrying a weapon doesn't mean they can suppress other crimes, like two kids fighting. That is not the intent of this law. That is not the intent of this training. The intent of this training is to make sure they are professional, carrying a weapon on school grounds," added Perea, a father of young children.
The marshals volunteer for the job and are chosen by the districts.
They already have a concealed handgun license and train on the range and in the classroom. And they learn about use of force.
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"The thing I want them to walk away is to understand the concept of use of force, understand when to use that weapon if they need to use it. Hopefully, they will never need to use it," Perea said.
NBC 5 spoke to Villalba late Monday afternoon.
"We are seeing a number of ISDs around Texas look at this bill, determine whether it makes sense for them," said Villalba.
He also added that small, rural school districts will likely implement a marshal program. Large districts like Dallas Independent School District will wait to see how the program works in smaller school districts.
NBC 5 reporters Julie Fine and Bianca Castro contributed to this report.
