Your account manager stops by the Allen post before a client walkthrough and asks for a copy of your continuing education certificate. It is a reasonable request, and whether you can answer it in five minutes says a lot about how your renewal is going to go.

Four Things That Have to Be True Before You Submit

1. You have completed six hours of continuing education: §35.161(g) sets that figure for commissioned security officers and personal protection officers alike.
2. Those hours came from the renewal portion of the Level 3 or Level 4 course, as applicable, and were taught by department-approved training schools and instructors. Same subsection.
3. They fall inside the two-year period preceding your license’s current expiration date, which is what §35.161(n) requires for the hours to be valid at all.
4. If you are a commissioned security officer, you have a firearms proficiency certificate to submit with the renewal application: also §35.161(g).

And one more thing that catches people out: §35.161(a) says the renewal application may not be submitted until the required minimum hours have been earned. You cannot file and finish the training afterwards.

The In-House Program Your Employer Runs Probably Doesn’t Count

Large contract firms with a training department often run their own continuing education, and for some license types that is perfectly legitimate. Not for yours. §35.162(d) states that the in-house continuing education exemption available to companies with ten or more licensed employees does not apply to commissioned security officers or personal protection officers. §35.162(f) closes the other door: credits earned through outside entities may not be used to satisfy their requirement either.

Read together, those two provisions leave one route: an approved school. If you want to check the language yourself rather than take our word for it, the whole of 37 TAC Chapter 35 is public, and the licensing side sits with the Texas DPS Private Security Bureau.

One Class, Two Different Licenses

Because §35.161(g) names both, this renewal training serves commissioned security officers (Level 3) and personal protection officers (Level 4). Keep them separate in your head. Level 4 is the personal protection officer credential, executive protection work, not a senior version of a commissioned officer. They are distinct licenses that happen to share a renewal pathway, each pointing to the renewal portion of its own course.

Officers on an unarmed Level 2 non-commissioned license have no continuing education obligation at all. §35.161(b) exempts noncommissioned security officers outright, which is worth repeating to any supervisor who is chasing the whole roster for certificates that half of them do not owe.

Why This Comes Up So Often in Allen

Allen sits in the part of the North Texas corridor where corporate campuses, data and technology facilities, large retail and entertainment destinations and warehouse and distribution operations all sit within a few minutes of each other. That mix produces client contracts with compliance language in them, and contract compliance means somebody is periodically pulling officer files to confirm credentials are current. Officers working these posts get asked for documentation far more often than officers on quieter assignments.

It also means a lot of Allen officers are juggling shifts across several sites for one employer. Taking the classroom half 100% online is the practical answer to that. Be clear on scope, though: the online enrollment covers the online training only, and the in-person firearms qualification is not included: it is scheduled separately after you complete the online portion.

Who Actually Holds the Paper

Three parties, three obligations. Your employer maintains proof in your personnel file and you indicate completion on the renewal application, per §35.161(a). The school issues a certificate of attendance under §35.162(b)(3) showing your name and license number, the date of attendance, the number of hours and the courses attended, signed and dated by the school director, and retains its records for two years. And under §35.161(m), you keep your own certificates for two years and furnish copies to the department on request. Our certificate for this course is the one listed as PSP 31.

If the Gap Has Been a Long One

§35.141(d) provides that someone inactive or expired who has not been employed in the industry for three years or more must submit current training certificates to the department. If that describes you, the renewal course may be the wrong purchase and the full Level 3 commissioned security officer course the right one. Our FAQ page walks through how to tell which side of that line you are on.