The Los Angeles School District has hired 440 security aides equipped with vests and radios to patrol its elementary schools as part of a $4.2 million plan to increase school security, CBS-Los Angles reports.

LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy told radio station KNX 1070 that these aides are in addition to the 1,028 guards already assigned to high school and middle school campuses. Two aides will be placed in every elementary campus where they were not located before – “They man the gates, they secure the perimeter and they notify the police of the LAPD and LAUSD PD if they are required,” he says.

In a Jan. 23 memo from Senior Deputy Superintendent Michelle King, she announced the district’s plan to add more than 1,000 campus aides who would work a minimum of three-hour shifts.