Don't Mess With Texas

[CharlesHarris]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/us/ar...hools.html

...After the latest mass shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., last month, President Trump amplified calls to train and arm educators, roiling the teaching profession and infuriating gun control advocates who see yet another inappropriate — and potentially disastrous — duty being heaped on teachers.

For all the outcry, though, hundreds of school districts across the country, most of them small and rural, already have. Officials ...do not see...weaponry...as a political statement, but as a practical response to a potent threat.

At least 10 states allow staff members to possess or have access to a firearm on school grounds, according to an analysis by the Education Commission of the States...local districts have varied their approach to arming educators — in Ohio, guns are kept in safes; in Texas, they can be worn in holsters or kept in safes within immediate reach.

A Florida state legislative committee approved a $67 million “school marshal” program this week to train and arm teachers — over the vocal opposition of Parkland residents.

In Texas, some public school systems have been quietly arming teachers and administrators for more than a decade. Teachers and other school personnel who volunteer to undergo specialized training receive approval to either carry a concealed firearm in school or have one within reach.

... Uniformed, armed officers cost $200,000 a year, and an insurance policy of $100,000 a year includes coverage for its staff with access to firearms. Those are negligible costs for a school district with a $36 million budget, the superintendent said.
Nicki New, the parent of three students in Sidney schools, supports the security measures taken by the district...

Windows and doors are numbered in the district’s schools, and visitors have to be buzzed in. Each school has a panic button and security camera system that feeds to the sheriff’s office. Every school has a uniformed, armed guard, mostly retired sheriff’s deputies, every day from bell to bell. The high school has a specially trained officer and a bulletproof window between the secretary and visitors.

And if all else fails, there’s a secret group of 40 educators — teachers, principals, custodians, secretaries — called a “first responder team” that can retrieve firearms in under a minute.

The team was vetted by Mr. Scheu and Sheriff Lenhart, and completed a 16-hour training course that includes firearm safety, unarmed defensive tactics and basic gunshot first aid. Its members are required to attend a concealed weapons course, as well as additional monthly trainings at either the firing range where they practice marksmanship and in school-based simulations where they practice in the hallways, identifying threats and eliminating them with air guns.

Since the team was created, it has responded to one incident, this past August when a student brought a gun to school in his backpack. It did not require a member to retrieve a gun.

The measures here met some opposition at first, from the town’s teachers union and police chief, who were concerned about gun safety.

But Rick Cron, the armed guard at Sidney Middle School, said he would put members of his team up against any law enforcement officer in Ohio. The state only requires that officers fire 25 shots a year; his team members shoot at least 600.

“It’s the teacher’s responsibility to protect the kids, no matter what, and they do it already,” Mr. Cron said, “but without the tools...”

Nicki New, the parent of three students in Sidney City Schools, said she felt safer dropping off her children knowing there were staff members equipped to respond to a parent’s worst nightmare.

“God forbid, if something would happen, knowing that not only a law enforcement officer is there, but there are teachers in that building who can give my child a fighting chance, is even more reassuring,” Ms. New said.

Erica L. Green reported from Sidney, Ohio, and Manny Fernandez from Houston.

A version of this article appears in print on March 2, 2018, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump’s Call to Arm Teachers Resonates at Schools That Do.