It's been almost two years since a law took effect requiring student resource officers at every Kentucky school.

But many districts across the state are struggling to hire these officers, commonly called sorrows.

A new bill in the Kentucky General Assembly may provide a creative solution to the problem.

Our Clayton Dalton takes a look at Senate Bill two as we begin tonight's legislative update.

Currently, we have 600 campuses in the Commonwealth of Kentucky that do not have SRO protection.

That for a lack of a workforce participation.

It could be a lack of funding for school districts.

And we wanted to give many school districts that simply right now can't get an SRO to have someone in their community that would fall under this guidance and under these parameters to be a good tucky guardian within a school district.

Senate Bill two establishes the Kentucky Guardian program, which would allow local school boards to hire retired military and law enforcement school safety officers, particularly when the district cannot fill SRO vacancies.

They would go through SRO Level one training.

They would be able to carry a concealed weapon.

They would go through the same type of background investigation, mental health examination, polygraph examination, everything that we also do for our sorrows.

The bill's sponsor says guardians are not meant to replace sorrows and he emphasized the difference between the two positions.

Their sorrows also have the ability of arresting authority.

They are law enforcement officers within the school walls.

These guardians do not have arresting authorities.

Sorrows go through a level two and a level three of additional training.

Senate Bill two also requires schools to present suicide awareness lessons for grades fourth through 12th, and it requires schools to form a trauma informed team that focuses on supporting students impacted by physical and emotional trauma.

The trauma informed approach is working.

And with that, let's not confuse anybody by taking something out if it's working well right now.

The bill does not have any funding within it, meaning decisions about paying guardians will be left to the school districts.

A district could come up if they wish to provide a stipend or not.

There's nothing in this bill directly that has an appropriation, therefore with it.

That's not to say, though, maybe after this next year, once the program goes into effect of 2025, 2026, we come back in a future time with the budget and maybe look to incorporate that.

We don't know right now how many people would actually sign up to be a guardian, but we do think it's an opportunity.

We do see it as once again, just another layer that's there to say the Commonwealth of Kentucky is serious about protecting our children across the Commonwealth.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Clayton Dalton.

Senate Bill two drops is the filing deadline looms.

There's not been assigned to a committee.

The last day to file bills is Monday in the House and Wednesday in the Senate.