Washington Revised Code Title 18. Businesses and Professions § 18.170.105. Training requirements

(1) To promote the safety of persons and the security of property, the director shall meet with interested parties to develop lists of suggested preassignment, postassignment, and postassignment refresher training by rule.

(2) All security guards licensed on or after July 1, 2005, must complete at least eight hours of preassignment training, comprised of at least four hours of classroom instruction and an additional four hours of classroom instruction or individual instruction, or both.  The preassignment training may be waived for any individual who was most recently employed full time as a sworn peace officer not more than five years prior to applying to become licensed as a private security guard and who passes the examination typically administered to applicants at the conclusion of the preassignment training.

(4) Following completion of the preassignment and postassignment training, at least four total hours of annual refresher training shall be administered to security guards each subsequent year.  The subsequent year begins, for refresher training purposes, the day following the last date the security guard is required to receive the eight hours of initial postassignment training.  No more than one hour per year of annual refresher training may focus directly on customer service-related skills or topics and the remaining three hours per year of annual refresher training must focus on emergency response concepts, skills, or topics including but not limited to knowledge of site post orders or life safety.

(5) Security guards who receive any of the school safety and security staff classroom training described in RCW 28A.310.515(2) may apply the number of completed classroom training hours to meet either the initial postassignment training requirement or the annual refresher training requirement.

(6) Companies must maintain records regarding the training hours completed by each employee.  All such records are subject to inspection by the department.  The training requirements and test results must be recorded and attested to by a department-certified trainer.  Training records must contain a description of the topics covered, the name and signature of the trainer, and the name and signature of the security guard.