States Tackle School Safety After Sandy Hook Shootings (#2)
BY: Ben Wieder, Stateline | March 5, 2013
In
recent weeks, the South Dakota legislature has been rattled over a bill that
aims to make schools safer by introducing “school sentinels” — teachers, administrators,
security guards or community volunteers — who would carry guns to protect their
schools.
“If
you have not heard about the sentinels bill, it’s probably time to come out of
hibernation,” state Senator Craig Tieszen joked last week, according to the
Argus Leader.
The
bill, which school districts could adopt voluntarily, passed both chambers of
the legislature, despite protest from the state’s school board association and
most Democrats, and was signed by Gov. Dennis Daugaard on March 8.
South
Dakota is among several states considering new school safety laws in the wake
of the December shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.,
that left 20 young students and six adults dead.
A
month after the tragedy, President Obama called for a mix of gun-control
measures and increased security at schools. His plan would ban military-style
assault rifles and strengthen background checks, but also would include more
money for guidance counselors and school resource officers, who are usually
armed and trained to work at schools. He also supported requiring schools to
adopt emergency plans and beefing up mental health services to earlier identify
students in need of help.
Different Approaches
States
have pursued a variety of proposals. The day before Obama released his plan,
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a new law, which toughens gun laws in
schools and requires them to submit school safety plans to a new School Safety
Improvement Team. The act also bans assault weapons, puts greater restrictions
on ammunition, and requires counselors and therapists to report potentially
dangerous patients to mental health officials. In February, Arkansas passed
legislation requiring the state to determine whether schools are equipped to
respond to acts of violence.
Kathy
Christie, who heads legislative research at the Education Commission on the
States, says a new trend in school security strategy stresses greater emphasis
on training teachers to spot mental health problems in students and refer them
for help. “They’re looking at what is the first line of defense,” she says.
But
the question of beefing up security in schools — particularly allowing teachers
and other school staff to be armed — has proved more divisive. Many education
leaders criticized the National Rifle Association after it recommended putting
an armed guard in every school. After Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell also
suggested that the state consider arming teachers, leaders of the country’s two
largest teachers unions, the National Education Association and the American
Federation of Teachers, jointly condemned the idea.
“Guns
have no place in our schools,” Dennis van Roekel of the NEA and Randi
Weingarten of the AFT said in a joint statement.
Paying for Security
In
just under a third of the nation’s schools, guns do have a place, at least some
of the time. According to Department of Education statistics from the 2009-2010
school year, about 28 percent of schools had some armed security staff, with
more than 50 percent of middle schools and 60 percent of high schools reporting
the presence of armed staff.
Those
numbers could increase under the president’s proposal, but it could be
expensive. Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School
Resource Officers, estimates that each resource officer costs $50,000 to
$80,000, depending on location.
In
the early part of the last decade, the federal government helped pay for these
officers through its Cops in Schools program, which gave police departments up
to $41,666 a year to help hire them. Funding for the program dried up in 2005.
Some in Congress have called for it to be renewed, while Obama’s plan would
give priority to existing Department of Justice grants to police departments
hiring school resource officers. Sequestration cuts could affect just how much
grant money is available.
To
cut costs, some lawmakers are considering retired police officers as potential
school security, which Canady says could work if they have the right
temperament for a school environment. South Dakota state Representative Scott
Craig, who introduced the "school sentinels" bill, says his plan to
arm already employed staff members or volunteers is an even more cost-effective
approach for districts and localities, including the small and rural, that
aren’t wealthy.
“These
folks can’t afford it,” he says. “They’ve got one sheriff.”
Craig
says law enforcement would approve the sentinels who would receive mandatory
training. But while teachers in a few states have flocked to free gun training
provided in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, some question whether arming
teachers actually would make schools safer.
Canady
says that armed staff could make things more complicated if police officers
were called to a shooting at a school. “In Wild West terms, how would we know
who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?” he says.
Francisco
Negrón, General Counsel for the National School Board Association, says it
could also open up schools to liability in the case of an accident. “A teacher
has qualified immunity in performing his or her duties,” he says, “but are his
or her duties to carry a gun?”
Limits of Success
The
South Dakota bill has had more success so far than measures in at least 20
other states that would allow some school employees to be armed, according to
the National Conference of State Legislatures. A Virginia bill introduced
shortly after McDonnell’s suggestion never made it out of committee before the
end of session. Similar bills in Tennessee, California and Alaska are also stalled.
Some districts have even gone in the opposite direction, with schools in Denver
recently reducing the role of police in schools.
Even
if states add security and develop better safety measures, Canady says there is
always a limit to what they can accomplish. He says the safety protocol
followed in Sandy Hook, where many teachers locked their classroom doors and
moved students away from them, is in line with the best practices.
“When
you have a madman with that kind of weapon, it’s hard to defend unless you’ve
got a properly trained and armed professional on the other side,” he says. “You
can’t have police officers everywhere.”
Stateline
is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Center on the States that
provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.
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