One of the requirements of maintaning your Security Guard license with the BSIS is to maintain your guard card in good standing. To do so you must complete a certain amount of continuing education per year. You need to complete a total of 32 hours worth of continuing education after your guard card is first issued:
16 hours – Within the first 30 days.
16 hours – Within the first 6 months.
Annual Refresher Courses
Each year after, you need to complete 8 hours worth of training in the form of “refresher” courses. To do this we offer classes that fulfill this requirement online.
Continuing education is a particularily important part of being a Security Guard. If you do not maintain your status with the BSIS and are caught working without a valid license, both you and the company will be fined up to $5000. From the BSIS: "...in accordance with section 148 of the Code against any unlicensed person who is acting in the capacity of a licensee,
registrant, permit holder, or certificate holder under the jurisdiction of the Bureau and who is not otherwise exempt from licensure. Each citation may contain an assessment of an administrative fine up to $5,000 and, where appropriate, an order of abatement fixing a reasonable period of time not to exceed 30 days for abatement."
In order to support you and help you to remember the deadlines to maintain your license in good standing we are rolling out new procedures and we maintain a manager who is in charge of Compliance. New procedures may include being moved to a new scheduling system within the year or in some cases remaining on the Shiftboard scheduling system with new features for compliance. In both cases we appreciate your patience as we see which program works best for the company.
Praetorian USA New Guard Program
Praetorian USA grows every year and we are always in need of licensed guards for higher paying positions with more responsibility. Therefore, if you have worked at least 1 shift in the last 30 days and your Team Member status is in good standing (No no-shows no-calls etc), we can offer you most of the classes you need to recieve or maintain your Guard Card absolutely free.
The required classes are:
8 hours pre-license: Power To Arrest (4-Hours) And Weapons Of Mass Destruction/Terrorism Awareness (4-Hours)
Each one of these classes are worth 4 hours, and once completed and passed, you will be issued a BSIS approved certificate. We will also note the completion in the Praetorian database. Once you have completed your pre-licensing classes you are going to need to take:
16 hours within 30 days post-license: Liability and Legal Aspects (4-Hours) & Observation and Documentation (4-Hours) | Public Relations - Community and Customer (4-Hours) & Communication and Its Significance (4-Hours)
These classes are able to be completed at home and will most likley not take you 16 hours to compete. After the initial 16 hours worth of courses, you have another 16 hours worth of course to complete to be complaint. You must have all four of the mandatory classes above completed, before you can take any of the below, but just as before, these are offered to Praetorian licensed guards in good standing for free:
16 hours within 6 months post-license: Officer Safety (2-Hours), Evacuation Procedures (1-Hour), and Workplace Violence (1-Hour) Arrest, Search and Seizure (4-Hours) and Handling Difficult People (4-Hours) Post Orders and Assignments (2-Hours), Driver Safety (1-Hour), and Fire Safety (1-Hour)Public Relations Communications Liability Observation & Documentation
Lastly, a requirement of your license is that you do a “refresher” course worth 8 hours once per year, every year you maintain your guard card. You can retake any of the classes mentioned above.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact our Compliance Manager, Hannah Holliday at Hannah@praetorianusa.com