Local Legislators, Educators Discuss School Safety

Discussions of school safety nationwide have followed the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month.

At a recent joint meeting of the Pickens County Legislative Delegation and school district officials, that topic was very much on the minds of educators and legislators.

“What happened in Newtown is of great concern to us,” said Sen. Larry Martin, who said there's going to be “a lot of different discussions” regarding school safety in the coming weeks. “Killing 20 first-graders – it's just incomprehensible that something like that could happen. This is going to be on our minds for some time.”

Several days after the shootings, Martin was asked what he thought would be done regarding school safety.

“My first reaction was, 'Look, we need to hear from the schools districts, we need to hear from our schools, we need to hear from our local school principals and our able superintendent before we go off half-cocked making proposals that may sound good, may have some great attention-getting headlines associated with them,” Martin said. “It's a long term issue, how we address school safety in a way that everybody feels comfortable with. It's just an unfortunate sign of the times. It's not just schools, it's shopping centers, movie theaters – it's anywhere people are. Unfortunately, there's always that element in society that wants to go out with a bang and get all the attention associated with it.”

On the Monday following the Newtown tragedy, the district leadership team visited all the schools in the district, said Superintendent Dr. Kelly Pew.

“One place where we would like to see improvement is it would be great to have a School Resource Officer at the elementary schools,” Pew said. “It's unfortunate that that's the day and time in which we live – but it is.”

The district's middle and high schools have SROs, she said.

“One of the SROs at the middle schools said, 'If nothing else, them seeing us and knowing that we're armed, hopefully, would keep somebody out,'” Pew said. “Our elementary schools don't have that.”

The district has 16 elementary schools, and Pew realizes placing a SRO at each would be expensive.

District Financial Services Director Clark Webb said placing an SRO at each elementary school would cost about $670,000 a year.

She said the district's building program has allowed the district to make each school more secure.

Sen. Thomas Alexander asked if SROs at middle and high schools can visit elementary schools as well as part of their duties.

Pew said SROs do make rounds at elementary schools.

Assistant Superintendent of Instructional Services Sharon Huff said jurisdiction issues could be problematic.

“That may be something to consider, giving some leeway to those people designated as school resource officer, so those lines of jurisdiction are not as hard and fast when they're doing school business,” Huff said.

“We're going to have to start working together,” Alexander said. “The jurisdiction stuff doesn't cut it. Children's safety far exceeds that

Arming teachers and principals has been suggested, but Trustee Ben Trotter said he didn't think that was the answer.

“If we have teachers and principals that are licensed and carry a weapon, they're going to have to be mean and willing to kill somebody,” he said. “That's a lot. They've got a split-second to make up their mind, and say are we willing to take all this person is and ever will be and kill him? Or are they going to pause for a second, him kill them, then get mad and then take out more students?”

SROs have the necessary training to make those decisions, Trotter said.

“They've got to be willing to kill,” he said. “To teach an (average) person all their life 'Thou shalt not kill' then all of a sudden 'Kill.' I think school resource officers is the best thing.”

Martin agreed.

“To have somebody (armed) in a school setting, you'd have to have some serious training,” he said. “You'd have to have not only CWP (training) but some pretty extensive training.”

“CWP training is not on incidents, it's on how to use the weapon,” said Rep. Phil Owens.

“You're talking about life or death,” Martin said.

“Intensive” training should be several days, if not a week, legislators agreed.

“It's not just the incident training or the firearm training, but also psychological evaluations that go along with this, if the person meets the criteria for being able to be entrusted with that type of responsibility,” Martin said. “Let's face it, we have educators and administrators and staff, they reflect our society. And there are folks who have problems, that don't need to (carry weapons) under any circumstances. They might be a fine teacher or administrator, but they don't need to be carrying a weapon.”

Trustee Alex Saitta said having armed teachers and administrators could function as “hidden deterants.”

“You just don't know who has the weapons,” he said.

Rep. Davey Hiott said a colleague in the legislature was considering putting forth a bill that would allow school principals to appoint two people in the school to carry weapons.

“If the principal wants to appoint himself, he can choose himself and one other person,” Hiott said. “If he or she doesn't feel comfortable doing that, they can appoint two people in that school. They have to notify the district office as to who those people are. They don't have to notify their faculty, they have to notify the district office. It can't change for a year. For one year, it's got to be that same person, unless there's turnover in that school. That's being floated out there and it seems to be gaining momentum.”

Parents will know somebody in the school is armed.

“They might not know who it is, but they'll know two people are carrying that weapon at all times,” Hiott said.

He said the two appointees will go through “some intense training.”

Pickens High School Principal Marion Lawson said many schools have people who have military and/or law enforcement training.

“I've got two Army Rangers in my ROTC program,” Lawson said. “They are more qualified than anybody I can think of.”

Martin said “very thorough discussions” need to take place before any plan is passed.

“There's going to have to be some serious, serious training and protocols established,” Martin said. “We're just going to have to work together on this.”