Level 3 Security Officer Class in Pearland, Texas

Your LTC covers you as a citizen; a security officer commission covers you at work. Here is what the Level III course adds for Pearland officers, and what carries over.

Plenty of Pearland residents carry every day and assume that settles it. It does not: and the reason has nothing to do with how well you shoot.

One License Is About You. The Other Is About the Job.

License to Carry: a personal carry license. It concerns you as a private citizen carrying your own firearm on your own time.
Security officer commission: an occupational credential. It is what permits an officer to carry a firearm while working a security post, in uniform, for a licensed company.

They are not ranked against each other and one does not upgrade into the other. They are parallel licenses answering different questions, which is why holding an LTC gets you no closer to an armed post on its own. §35.141(a)(2) of 37 TAC Chapter 35 requires the Level 3 training course of anyone seeking a security officer commission, and of personal protection officers, with no exception written in for existing carry license holders.

The Range Day Will Feel Familiar

Now the part experienced carriers like hearing. The firearms proficiency exam for a commission is close to identical in format to the Texas LTC proficiency exam. Under §35.145, the qualification may be conducted with the DPS Primary Issued Handgun Qualification Course or the DPS Approved LTC Course: so the shooting standard you already met is literally one of the two options on the table. Your existing range time is not wasted; it is the half of this you have effectively already done once.

You also get something an LTC never offered. §35.146 sets out a shotgun course of fire for commissioned security officers, so qualifying with a shotgun alongside the handgun is an option worth taking if the posts you want ask for it.

Do Not Underestimate the Classroom Half

Level 3’s written material is where the real distance lies: the law governing armed security work, use of force, and the duties that attach to a commission. Obligations that exist because you are working, not merely carrying. And the standard is demanding. Under §35.144(c), the minimum passing grade on Level 3 and Level 4 school examinations is 75%, which is above the Texas License to Carry written test threshold. Good shooters fail written exams they did not take seriously.

A second thing people get backwards

Level 3 is the commissioned security officer. Level 4 is the personal protection officer, close protection, a distinct course requiring a minimum of fifteen classroom hours under §35.141(a)(3). Level 4 is not a senior version of Level 3 and not a general advanced armed tier. For an armed security post, Level 3 is your class.

The Order of Operations

Complete the Level 2 Security Officer course and keep the certificate.
Complete Level 3 Part 1 online, classroom material and written exam, then Part 2 in person, covering defensive tactics, firearms handling and the proficiency exam.
Apply to DPS for the commission. Under §35.81(a) the application requires copies of both certificates of completion, plus the other items DPS lists. Finishing the course does not issue the commission. DPS does, on application.
Keep it current afterwards through the armed security renewal course.

Two practical notes. ETXSTA delivers Part 1 100% online, and the online course price covers the online training only: the in-person firearms qualification is scheduled separately and is not included. Also, Level 3 material is prepared by and obtained from DPS and may only be taught by a DPS-approved school using a DPS-approved instructor; unlike Level 2, a licensed company cannot have its own designee deliver it in-house. Under §35.147 the school issues your original certificate (PSP 30) within seven days of qualifying and retains training records for 24 months.

What Pearland Actually Hires For

Pearland has grown from a quiet Brazoria County town into a substantial suburb on Houston’s southern edge, and its armed security demand looks like that growth: medical office buildings and a busy healthcare corridor, bank and credit union branches serving a large residential base, distribution and logistics operations along the highway corridors, and gated residential and corporate campuses. Officers here also sit within easy reach of the industrial work down toward the Ship Channel, so a commission opens two markets at once rather than one.

If you want to check any of this against the source, the licensing side lives with the Texas DPS Private Security Bureau, and our FAQ page handles the questions that come up most often.