2025 Texas sessionsRegular and both called sessions have ended. This index covers House and Senate bills, not resolutions. Statuses come from official reports.

2025 · Regular session · House bill

HB1458

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1458 expands who can fill the armed-security-officer role under the existing school-district campus requirement.

Read bill highlights ↓

Official caption: Relating to the armed security officers required to be present at public schools and the appointment of reserve police officers by a school district police department.

Signed by governorSource-checked explanation published

Official report lists House author(s): Metcalf, Capriglione. This does not identify sponsors or amendment drafters.

Report an error ↗

Bill explanation published · Version and amendment review scope is stated below · Individual amendment records may not be separately annotated.

Bill highlights

Selected points from the published explanation. Follow each point to its source-linked context; conditions and limits may matter.

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1458 expands who can fill the armed-security-officer role under the existing school-district campus requirement.
The underlying law already requires school-district boards to ensure at least one armed security officer is present at each campus during regular school hours, subject to its good-cause/alternative-standard framework.
The act also permits a school board to authorize its district police chief to appoint reserve police officers, with a board-set numerical limit if desired.
The cross-referenced training provisions address continuing education, active-shooter response and applicable retired-officer weapons proficiency.

Read the full explanation ↓

What does it do?

Effective September 1, 2025, HB1458 expands who can fill the armed-security-officer role under the existing school-district campus requirement. It adds qualifying reserve deputy sheriffs, qualifying school-district reserve police officers, and honorably retired peace officers who keep an active commission and meet the specified continuing-education, active-shooter and weapons-proficiency requirements. Retirement alone or simply holding a handgun license does not qualify someone. Final law

The underlying law already requires school-district boards to ensure at least one armed security officer is present at each campus during regular school hours, subject to its good-cause/alternative-standard framework. HB1458 changes the eligible personnel list; it does not create that original campus mandate, remove the good-cause framework or authorize any untrained volunteer to satisfy the regular officer requirement. Education Code 37.0814

The act also permits a school board to authorize its district police chief to appoint reserve police officers, with a board-set numerical limit if desired. Reserves serve at the chief’s discretion and may be called when additional officers are needed to preserve the peace and enforce the law.

For a reserve holding a permanent peace-officer license, the chief may authorize peace-officer/weapon authority at all times or limit it to official duty.
A reserve without a permanent license may act as a peace officer only while actually performing official duties and after fulfilling the applicable continuing-education and active-shooter-training requirements. This is not the same as satisfying the campus officer list: the act’s added district-reserve category in the general peace-officer definition expressly requires a permanent license.
A reserve called to active duty and performing assigned duties has the rights, privileges and duties of other Texas peace officers.
Reserve status does not confer participation in the specified full-time-employment financial-benefit programs or statutory pension funds for full-time paid peace officers. Nor does it exempt the reserve from the private-security law in Occupations Code Chapter 1702. The act does not say all reserve service must be unpaid.

The cross-referenced training provisions address continuing education, active-shooter response and applicable retired-officer weapons proficiency. The definition of “honorably retired” also includes service, disciplinary and retirement/pension conditions; it is not synonymous with every former officer. Occupations Code 1701.351, .3525 and .357 · Government Code 614.121

What changed along the way?

The introduced bill added reserve deputy sheriffs and qualifying retired officers to the campus personnel options. The House committee substitute added the school-district reserve system, the related peace-officer/licensing definitions and code-conforming provisions. Introduced · House substitute

McLaughlin’s sole indexed House amendment, adopted April 17, 2025, expressly required reserves without permanent licenses to meet the applicable continuing-education and active-shooter-training requirements before acting as peace officers. Engrossed, Senate committee and enrolled operative text match; there was no Senate amendment or conference version. Adopted amendment · Amendment index · Engrossed · Senate committee · Version index

The act also reconciles the general peace-officer list with identified 2023 laws and says it prevails over conflicting nonsubstantive code corrections enacted in the 2025 regular session. Those housekeeping provisions are distinct from the new district-reserve authority.

Governor Abbott signed it June 20, 2025, following House passage 145–0, with one present but not voting, and Senate passage 31–0. Official history

For the full amendment record, open the official amendment index.

Official bill versions

Compare the published text versions in the official text index. A change is not attributed to a specific amendment here without a verified record.

Who could benefit—and who could bear the costs?

Districts gain more qualified staffing options and flexibility to establish reserve capacity. Eligible officers gain another way to serve schools, but reserves face the specified benefit limitations. District leaders remain responsible for qualifications, training, supervision and deployment. The act does not establish that these options eliminate staffing shortages or produce a measured safety improvement.

All three Legislative Budget Board fiscal notes anticipate no state fiscal implication and no significant local-government fiscal implication. They provide no quantified two-year or five-year cost/savings estimate. That finding does not mean individual districts have no recruitment, training or supervision costs. Introduced fiscal note · Substitute fiscal note · Engrossed fiscal note

Official sources

Catalog report retrieved 2026-10-25. Check the official record for corrections or later changes.