In a town the size of Gilmer, renewal training has traditionally meant a day trip. It does not have to anymore: but the list of things you need before you can apply has not changed at all.

The Short List, Before Anything Else

A commissioned security officer or personal protection officer in Upshur County needs all four of these in place before the renewal application itself is worth touching:

1. Six hours of continuing education, completed: §35.161(a) bars submitting the application until they are earned.
2. Those hours taken through the renewal portion of the Level 3 or Level 4 course, from a department-approved school and instructor. §35.161(g).
3. Completion falling inside the two-year period before your current expiration date: §35.161(n).
4. For commissioned officers, a firearms proficiency certificate filed with the application. Also §35.161(g).

Line One: Earned, Not Booked

§35.161(a) is the line people skip. A renewal application may not be submitted until the required minimum continuing education hours have been earned. You cannot file and finish afterward. The same provision also assigns the recordkeeping: proof of completion must be maintained by the employer in the employee’s personnel file, and the licensee indicates completion on the renewal application. If you have picked up posts through more than one contract company, and in a rural market a lot of officers do, it is worth asking which of them is actually holding that proof.

Line Two: The Source Of The Hours Is Fixed

§35.161(g) sets the six hours, says they are satisfied by completing the renewal portions of the Level III or IV training course, as applicable, and requires the training be taught by department-approved training schools and instructors. Then two further provisions remove every alternative an armed officer might otherwise reach for. §35.162(d): the in-house continuing education exemption that companies with ten or more licensed employees may use does not apply to commissioned security officers or personal protection officers. §35.162(f): credits earned through outside entities may not be used to satisfy their requirement. So the safety briefing your employer runs, however good it is, is not the six hours.

That is the point where Gilmer officers have historically lost a day. Approved schools cluster in the bigger East Texas markets, so the classroom hours have generally meant a drive down to Tyler or across to Longview and a shift rearranged around it. Our renewal course runs 100% online, which removes that trip entirely for the classroom half.

Line Three: A Window, Not A Habit

§35.161(n) states that continuing education is only valid if completed within the two-year period preceding the license’s current expiration date. People compress that into “renew every two years,” which quietly changes the meaning. It is a window your hours have to fall inside. Sitting a class too far ahead of the expiration date does not build credit for the cycle to come.

Line Four: The Range Part Is Separate

A commissioned security officer must submit a firearms proficiency certificate with the renewal application. Our online price covers the online training only; the in-person firearms qualification is not included and is scheduled separately after you complete the online course. Officers who carry a shotgun should also note §35.146(b), which sets a biennial familiarization of six rounds of “00” buckshot in connection with renewal of a commissioned security officer.

Afterward, And The People This List Does Not Cover

You receive a certificate of completion, listed on our site as PSP 31. Under §35.161(m) you keep certificates of completion for two years and furnish copies to the department on request, and under §35.162(b)(3) that certificate carries your name and license number, the date of attendance, the number of hours and the courses attended, signed and dated by the school director.

Two groups can stop reading the list. Unarmed officers holding a Level 2 non-commissioned license are exempt from continuing education altogether under §35.161(b). And anyone inactive or expired who has not been employed in the industry for three years or more falls under §35.141(d) and must submit current training certificates to the department. That usually points back to the full Level 3 commissioned security officer course rather than a renewal. Around Gilmer, where armed work runs to gas and pipeline facilities, timber and manufacturing sites, school and county contracts and the occasional retail post, lapses like that are common enough to be worth checking before you buy anything.

If you serve or have served, §35.182 gives military service members two additional years to complete a continuing education requirement or any other renewal-related requirement, and §35.181 waives late-renewal penalty fees for them. Everything cited here is readable in 37 TAC Chapter 35, licensing itself is handled by the Texas DPS Private Security Bureau, and our full course list shows what else we run.