If Plano isd wants to go that route, I have nothing against it. My district's budget is very tight and we would not be able to afford even a .5% budget increase without a bond election. I would much rather us spend the money on a "sure thing" like interventionists for struggling students than a "1 in a million". If the school shooting nonsense proves to be more of a trend, look at things again and possibly provide the armed guards.
Why not model it after the sky marshall plan where they are plain clothes and rotate them through the schools so on any given day 1/2 of the schools have one or two of these "school marshalls" on site. Pair that up with mandatory teacher or teacher aide daily 1 hour duty in the hallways with a communication system back to the principal's office. So: 1. firepower and more eyeballs looking out every day school is in session, 2. a communication system for emergency response and school-wide plans, 3. multiple plans given where the threat is, to get the most students to safety.
I have no problem with that idea but its not realistic for my particular district. We cannot afford to put a guard in our schools even if they are rotating more than we are now. Currently each middle school and all of the elementary schools that connect to it gets an officer to share. If we had money for this, we would have laid off fewer people when the budget cuts happened two years ago. EAs are busy all day. We can't spare one to walk around the halls. They work with the kids all day with the exception of a 30 minute lunch that gets skipped quite frequently. I don't see our district going the armed guard route. We simply don't have the money without a bond election. Our area has pretty high property taxes and the district is very sensitive to that. We laid people off to avoid a bond election less than two years ago. I am very interested to see what new measures will be taken. There has been no talk of arming teachers or anything that would come with a significant cost. What about volunteer retired officers that could rotate between schools? It's far from perfect but its something to make one of these psychos think twice.
While I like the Deputy thing, I don't think it would be much of a deterent. Most of these if not all of them expect to die. I think added security it some form or fashion, whether it be off duty police, retired police, changing current patrols, parking police cars at schools, police substations located at schools, deputized teachers, a combination of all of the above. I do believe that there should be some research done into how one is qualified to buy a gun, background checks, type of gun and being qualified or licensed for different types of weapons. There should also be more done for counseling or education for teachers on what to look for in troubled children or teenagers.
I may get grilled for this, but why is there seemingly no talk of non-traditional and non-lethal weapons in schools, instead of only discussing handguns on campuses? What about looking at arming Principles, teachers and approved other staff members/coaches/aides/school workers with Tasers or other less lethal defense weapons? The issue of school safety is unnecessarily too polarizing, with no middle ground being offered. Or, maybe I think my Taser is more adept at self-defense than others do.
I think the tradegies that have occurred have put equal force with equal force in peoples minds. If a whack job has a gun, I want a gun not a taser or pepper spray. When someone is just shooting people you want force that will without a doubt put him down. I think tasers and pepper spray type of devices should be up to each local school or school district.
