Gov. Kay Ivey signs a memorandum creating the Alabama Sentry Program with state Superintendent Eric Mackey, left, and Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Secretary Hal Taylor. (Mike Cason/mcason@al.com)

Gov. Kay Ivey, state Superintendent Eric Mackey and Alabama Law Enforcement Secretary Hal Taylor announced today a program to authorize certain administrators to undergo training and have firearms stored on school campuses.

Ivey said the Alabama Sentry Program will begin immediately with the goal of being in place to start the 2018-2019 school year.

Ivey said it is the best way to protect schools now until the Legislature can reach consensus on a plan to put a school resource officer in every school.

"Now is the time to act and that is exactly what I am doing today," Ivey said during a press conference at the Capitol with Mackey and Taylor.

The program will be voluntary, require local approval and can only be used in schools that don't have a school resource officer.

Ivey appointed the Securing Alabama's Facilities of Education (SAFE) Council in March in response to the mass shooting that killed 17 people at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Valentine's Day.

The SAFE Council issued its report earlier this month.

Another mass school shooting has rocked the nation since then. Nine students and one teacher were killed at Santa Fe, Texas, High School on May 18.

Ivey has previously announced some directives she issued on recommendations from the SAFE Council, including a determination of how many schools do not have a resource officer and how much it would cost to put one in every school.

The governor's office is still waiting on that number.

Ivey said today it is the goal to place a school resource officer in every school. But she said the Alabama Sentry Program is a way to protect schools until that happens.

Here are some of the guidelines for the Alabama Sentry Program.

It will only be used in schools with no school resource officers.

Administrators approved as sentries will store weapons in a safe and could only use them in response to an armed intruder.

To be a sentry, an administrator will need approval of the local superintendent, local school board and county sheriff.

A sentry must have a concealed carry permit and be approved as a reserve deputy sheriff.

A sentry will have to pass training, drug screenings, a mental health evaluation and stress test.

A sentry's duties will include "the use of lethal force to defend the students, faculty, staff and visitors of his or her school from the threat of imminent bodily harm or death by an armed intruder."

During a shooting incident, a sentry will wear a distinctively marked bullet-proof vest known to law enforcement.

Mackey was asked if local school boards support the plan. The superintendent said local school officials are on heightened alert because of school shootings.

"They're looking for solutions and this is an answer to a question that many of them have had," Mackey said. "Especially those, as the governor pointed out, who cannot afford or do not have access to their own SROs. So this gives them another answer."

Mackey said rural school districts are particularly interested in more protection from armed intruders.

"We all know there are places in the state that may be 20 minutes from a sheriff's deputy or state trooper, the nearest law enforcement person," Mackey said. "They may not have an SRO in that school. So this gives them an opportunity to have somebody on site who's highly trained, who has access to a weapon, who will be ... very noticeable who that person is during a shooting because they'll have this vest on. So, we think it answers a lot of the questions that they have."

ALEA Secretary Taylor said plans are in the works for a training program for sentries, which he said will likely be at the State Trooper academy in Selma.

Taylor said ALEA is in contact with other states with similar programs. He said the training will be "second to none."

"They're going to know everything they need to know in how to use a weapon, how to handle a threat, how to handle an active shooter and how to handle any situation," Taylor said.

Alabama lawmakers proposed a number of bills in response to the Parkland, Fla., massacre including a bill to allow training and arming teachers. That bill did not pass and drew opposition from some state education organizations, including the Alabama PTA, Council for Leaders in Alabama Schools, School Superintendents of Alabama and the Alabama Association of School Boards.

But Sally Smith, executive director of the Alabama Association of School Boards, said this today about the Alabama Sentry Program:

"School boards overwhelmingly view trained SROs as the optimal first line of defense against school violence and do not believe arming school personnel is a long-term solution; however, we recognize the governor's desire to move quickly to ensure the safety of Alabama's schoolchildren. The Alabama Sentry program appears to be a reasonable, interim solution with some sensible safeguards until the legislature can address this issue and identify a long-term plan to fund SROs."

A Gallup poll released in March showed that most Americans opposed arming teachers.

One of the concerns raised about the proposal to arm teachers in the Alabama Legislature is that it would complicate actions for police responding to a school shooting. Police would have to be ready to encounter and identify an armed teacher while trying to stop the shooter.

Taylor said the bullet proof vests worn by sentries will identify them for law enforcement who will know what to look for.

"There will be something on there to differentiate," Taylor said. "And all police officers, all locals, first responders, will know what that is. They'll know good guy from bad guy."

Ivey did not support the idea of arming teachers when the legislation, by Rep. Will Ainsworth, R-Guntersville, was introduced in February.

"Teachers have got their hands full being teachers and instructors and I just think there's some other way to provide protection," she said at the time.

Today, Ivey drew a distinction between teachers and administrators.

"School administrators have complete access to all rooms in a school," Ivey said. "And unlike teachers, administrators are not responsible for the immediate custodial care of students during the day."

Sentries or their local school system would be responsible for acquiring and maintaining the firearms, ammunition, safe and bullet-proof vest.

The names of administrators, schools and school systems participating in the program will not be released to prevent undue influence from affecting an administrator's choice to participate, the governor's office said.

A school's participation in the Alabama Sentry Program stops immediately if the school hires an SRO or if the local school board or county sheriff terminates it.

In the memorandum to Mackey and Taylor, Ivey asks for an implementation plan by June 15.

Two weeks ago, Ivey requested that the six SAFE Council recommendations that don't require legislative action be started as quickly as possible.

Among those are implementing an "evidence-based threat assessment" to spot warning signs from students; creating a chain of communication to report threats via an app to the Alabama Fusion Center, a state agency that routes them to the appropriate agency; enforcing a requirement of two "code red" drills at schools every year; and creating 11 regional school safety training and compliance teams to serve K-12 schools.

The training and compliance teams will train the sentries with a program designed by ALEA.

AL.com reporter Trisha Powell Crain contributed to this report.