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Several Miami-Dade Cities Still Without Police Contracts To Have Full-Time Officers In Schools

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Miami City leaders met with Miami-Dade Public Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho as the school district figures out how it's going to meet a state mandate to provide an armed officer at every school come Monday morning — the first day of school in Miami-Dade.

The new legislation was put in place following the Marjory Stoneman Douglass massacre in February.

"This has been a daunting challenge, a massive challenge with a very tight deadline and insufficient funding for it to be realized.  And from the very beginning I articulated our plan that we would rely on partnerships, collaboration, cooperation with municipal and county leaders," said Superintendent Carvalho.

The latest municipality to commit law enforcement officers to secure schools — City of Miami Police.

Chief Jorge Colina told CBS4 News Thursday afternoon he could not commit the 34 officers needed because that would take away resources from high-crime areas.

But things changed following THURSDAY afternoon's meeting.

"Finally today at the last minute we were able to come to an agreement where through the various different ways of being creative with our resources," said Chief Colina.

Chief Colina says the city's going to manage providing the officers by paying some off-duty officers, using officers from other districts and utilizing officers who are working on a different capacity.

City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez assures residents there are enough officers to both secure schools and the community.

"The City of Miami has 1,300 officers city-wide and about 400 that are beat officers and that means and that means that at any given moment there's over 100 at a given shift," said Mayor Suarez.

Late Thursday evening the school district said Miami Gardens has agreed to provide 10 officers to guard schools there.

The district promises come Monday morning, every school will have an armed officer on campus.

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