Clayton Parent Says Teachers Should Teach, Not Be Police
(cross posted at Edudiva.com)
The Sandy Hook massacre inside an elementary school has shocked us all. While we want everyone to be safe, we expect our youngest to be so inside their own school.
My children attend Clayton School District, one of the wealthier districts in St. Louis County. Like many local districts, it already has police officers at the high school and middle school. (The middle school officer also works with the elementary schools.) On Monday when I went to pick up my youngest, I saw a different police officer at the elementary school. I was a bit taken aback but assumed he was there to help parents feel more secure in the first few days after the Connecticut shooting. I am hopeful that the district does not spend money to keep police officers or even armed security at each elementary school long-term as the expense would not be justified.
Other school districts such as Kirkwood and Florissant are considering police officers at elementary schools in their school safety reviews. I believe, however, that time and calm parents will help them spend limited resources wisely.
I do agree that schools should review safety procedures as they have after each school shooting and periodically otherwise. Safety experts learn from each experience. For example, whoever turned on the intercom at Sandy Hook, whether intentionally or not, alerted the teachers to the severity of the problem. These types of details are important to safety plans.
St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch said that each officer costs a district about $50,000 for a nine month contract. (Really a 10-month contract) In order to afford that, districts would need to lay off a teachers at each elementary school. That is not a trade-off I am willing to make.
As an alternative to paying for police officers at the schools, some politicians such as Texas governor, Rick Perry, have advocated arming teachers as a way to make schools safer. On Sunday, Chief Fitch brought the gun control debate squarely to the St. Louis school districts via Twitter.
It's time to talk with our schools (that don't have armed officers) about allowing properly trained school personnel to have firearms. --Chief Tim Fitch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch followed up with a front-page story discussing Fitch's suggestion and other security possibilities. The local districts did not react with enthusiasm.
Fred Crawford, chief of security for the Parkway School District, said he would favor more police in schools over gun training for school officers.
The districts are right to hesitate. Teachers with guns in the classroom, even in a locked drawer, would bring a whole new set of problems to schools: that gun is more likely to be found and used against the teacher or other students, the teacher is not going to be as experienced as an active police officer, that gun is unlikely to be useful against a prepared killer like Adam Lanza with a bulletproof vest on, the teacher would be spending time helping students to safety, police might mistake teacher for intruder etc.
I would not send my kids to school with a teacher carrying a gun or with a gun in a locked drawer in the classroom. If the gun is locked up in the office, I would still feel uncomfortable. Who would have access? Have the parents been notified who has access? Their training? The date and continuation of their training?
In addition, districts hire teachers to teach, not to act as security.
I'm a former teacher and my daughter teaches currently. I want our teachers to be trained so that we can address the problems of literacy, so that we can improve our education system. Let the public safety people handle these other issues." --Rep. John Larson (D) Conn. on NOW with Alex Dec. 17, 2012
Districts should re-evaluate their safety plans and assess whether to add more security, depending on the local needs, not as an emotional reaction to a horrific situation. They should not, however, ask teachers to become that security force.
SGB
3:58 pm on Thursday, December 20, 2012
Thank you for this article. You make excellent points, including a couple that haven't come up yet in other conversations I've had. To add another point, it's hard to imagine that a situation with a shooter will be made more manageable and safe by adding a dozen more minimally-trained teachers with guns. Gun incidents are chaotic, confusing, and messy. They only get moreso with multiple people running around, jumpy, scared, and armed, trying to make sense of the chaos. More bullets, less control, more collateral damage -- more kids dead. It's easy to imagine a clean, simple situation where one teacher takes careful aim and ends the bad guy before he can do any harm. Easy to imagine, and probably exactly what goes through the mind of people who propose arming teachers. Problem is, that clean scenario would never happen, and I shudder to think of the aftermath of a really messy situation.
Sharon Reid Harris
10:21 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Thank you for the nice words! You're right that gun incidents are "chaotic, confusing, and messy." In fact, police training is a lot more than marksmanship. It primarily focuses on the shoot/don't shoot decision that must be made in those messy situations.
Joseph Bank
4:53 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
I am a teacher and have been armed in my primary school class room every day for the last three school years. I carry a 9mm Glock 19 Semi-Automatic pistol with an extra 9 round clip in a clever holdster designed for conceal and carry. So far no one except me is aware that I am armed. I can get off 19 rounds in less than 20 seconds if need be. At least twice per month I go to range to maintain my skills and of course have my CCW permit. Even though the school does not allow me to carry weapons I feel it is my duty to protect my students in the event an armed intruder comes into my school / class room. The school does not ask and of course I do not tell. Would you rather have your child in my class room or the class room that is un-armed?
Caffeinated
5:21 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
You are incredibly irresponsible.
Joseph Bank
5:51 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
You are entitled to your opinion of me, however I am one of the good guys. Please answer my question; Do you want your child in my class room or in a defenseless, un-armed situation like the inocent victims faced at Sandy Hook?
Caffeinated
6:29 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
It's not your decision to make, and in fact you are violating the law. The fact that you would violate the Gun-Free Zone (assuming you are at a public school, since this is what this particular editorial addresses) tells me that your judgment is suspect, and no I don't want you anywhere near my children.
Should the citizens, parents, and leadership of a school district (or private school) decide as a community to take action to allow for some form of CCW, then that is one thing. Parents understand the environment they send their children to, and can make decisions based on that information. What you are doing is wrong.
Personally, I don't trust civilians to exhibit the judgment or have the ability to follow protocols that LEOs have. You taking this upon yourself demonstrates poor judgement, in my opinion.
Joseph Bank
8:21 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
Well that is your opinion. But let get this straight... you would rather have your child in a vulnerable unarmed environment like Sandy Hook than be in my class room? Maybe you are the one that is being irresponsible? The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun! Nothing is more stupid than a gun free zone. Just tells the bad guys that everyone here is a sitting duck. I carry my weapon all of the time into banks, Schnucks, ball games, --- I will not be a sitting duck and you never know when you or your family member will be thankful that someone like me is down the isle, cross the room or in line with you when a bad guy opens fire on you.
Joseph Bank
8:28 pm on Friday, December 21, 2012
The irony is that I could be teaching your child right now. You would never know until a bad guy gets into the school and is taking aim at your 9 year old I assure you that I will not hesitate to draw down on the bad guy and take him out. You can than arrest me for violating your stupid "feel good" gun free zone!
Wilma Flintstone
11:10 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
If we are waiting for the Government to solve the problem then we haven't we lost already? I am with Joseph on this one - randomly arm the teachers, encourage them to take gun safety and marksmanship training, then hope and pray they will never need to rely on it. I walked into my office building this morning and took special note of the “No Weapons Allowed” sign on the door. I think I will buy a gun (if there are any left) this weekend. There will probably a lot of layoffs at our company next year and I don’t want to be a “sitting duck” if one of my co-workers loses it. Joseph - do you recommend the Glock?
Mike K
11:30 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Mr. Bank, if you are convinced your position has merit, why haven't you approached your superiors and/or the school district/administration about your proposal?
We are at the intersection between your belief that you having a gun handy 24x7 "might" help you ward off *potential* *future* *hypothetical* attackers for one brief moment of need, and my belief that my child is in a gun-free zone when they are at school, where there is no risk of a gun accident, and that the teachers respect that belief when I choose to send my child into that school.
I didn't ask you to protect my child, and the community has explicitly stated this same policy. It is arrogant of you to think you "know better" than I do about my child's safety and violate school policy and the law to do so. If I am concerned about this, then you and others who feel like you would be able to convince the school governance to allow and legalize what you are and have been doing, and I would have the choice to send my child to such a school with that knowledge.
Taking away my choice as a parent because you don't feel like the law applies to you is not an expression of *my* freedoms, and demonstrates your complete lack of respect for the rights and freedoms that the rest of us are just as entitled to as you are.
If you don't like the current laws, work to change them, not break them.
Mike K
11:47 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
I might also point out that the statistics are clear -- more children are killed in gun accidents with lawfully owned weapons than psychotic suicidal mass murderers on a rampage.
On average, 4 children died every day in non-homicide firearm incidents from 1999-2002. From 1997-2002, more than 1,324 children were killed in firearm accidents. Source: CDC and http://ow.ly/gjq15
That another reader proposes that such gun-totin' teachers be "encouraged" to take training is horrifying, and does not ease my concerns at all over such a policy change. MANDATORY should be more like it, if you were to even think about convincing others to agree with you.
If you feel your workplace is so unsafe that you feel you need to carry, then you really need to find another line of work. Become a real police officer and ask to be assigned to school duty or your local church or mall security if you truly feel the need to carry a gun and "protect" people - legally and with their open agreement for you to do so.
Mike K
11:54 am on Saturday, December 22, 2012
And if you ask if I would agree with having a full or part-time LEO teach full or part time at a school and be allowed to carry, then I thnk that is a reasonable scenario, and I wouldn't have a problem with that. Others might, but I wouldn't. But a non-LEO I could never agree to. They just don't have the training and/or certifications. And before you jump on me about ex-military, the solution there is for them to get hired on and become an LEO.
But to claim that you know how to protect my child better than I do, I'll take a pass on your offer. I'm the parent, you're not.
Joseph Bank
12:52 pm on Saturday, December 22, 2012
I refuse to be a sitting duck if/when some mad man opens fires at my students, or my family and you shouldn’t expect me to. You can change whatever laws you want but when it comes to my safety and safety of my classroom and family you will never change my mind on this. Your fantasy that somehow parents have a right to make sure that kids are free from guns in a “gun free zone”; such a right could never exist. Our “Bill of Rights” explicitly gives all of us the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution has no mention of these “parents’ rights” that you imply. Rights are by definition unalienable and can never infringe on someone else’s. My decision to carry a weapon could never infringe on any of your rights. If I get caught in a gun free zone and arrested for breaking this law then I deserve to be prosecuted. I will take my chances. Lanza certainly did not care about laws or the rights of parents as he looked down the barrel of that rifle pointed at those children. Who poses a larger threat to you and your family – an armed teacher like myself or some drugged up sociopath, dead set on making a name for him/herself by taking out a couple of dozen innocent school children? Go ahead and curse me now, but pray with me and for all of us if there would ever be a need for me to draw my weapon in my class room. Then you will be thankful that you did not change my mind, that I chose to ignore the gun free zone law and that I was a good shot.
Joseph Bank
12:57 pm on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Wilma - the 9 mm Glock 26 (if there are any left) http://us.glock.com/products/model/g26gen4
Mike maybe you considered purchasing a weapon also. You never know when a bad guy may come into your life. When that happens it will be too late. Maybe this is why gun sales are up 100% over same period last year.
Mike K
4:10 pm on Saturday, December 22, 2012
Statistically, you pose a bigger real threat to the safety of those around you than Lanza types.
On average, 4 children died every day in non-homicide firearm incidents from 1999-2002. From 1997-2002, more than 1,324 children were killed in firearm accidents. Source: CDC and http://ow.ly/gjq15
I'll take my chances in a gun-free zone over your alleged self-professed skill and ability to disarm and protect my kid any day, every day. You expect me to trust your hypothetical, unproven ability as claim by someone that picks and chooses which laws he wants to abide by depending on whether you agree with them or not. What's next, you're only going to protect the straight white kids from affluent neighborhoods when you can't save them all and have to choose which children to save? IMHO it is you and your gun that are not helping the problem.
Bournius
8:36 am on Friday, December 28, 2012
Teachers should teach, firefires should fight fires, shoppers should shop and students should live and learn, yet that is not what is happening in this nation. Police in schools works, sometimes.
Bournius
8:36 am on Friday, December 28, 2012
Oops I meant fire fighters....