Officials from Georgia’s largest school district said Thursday — one day after the lieutenant governor announced he supports paying teachers to carry guns — that the idea is a cause for concern.
“I can’t imagine giving a green light to someone ... to carry a firearm in a school,” Gwinnett County Superintendent Calvin Watts said during a meeting with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters and editors. He noted his perspective is also one of a parent of child who went through the district.
“Training and all of that aside, it just gives me pause. And at the same time, I hope that those who are making these decisions also think very deeply and broadly about the implications,” Watts said.
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones said he backed a proposal to offer public school teachers a $10,000 annual stipend to take voluntary firearms courses and carry guns in school. He would also devote more funding for public safety officers at Georgia’s schools.
Jones said the measure comes in response to mass shootings at schools.
“It’s sad, but it is the sign of the times that we have to go to these lengths to protect our children, but it’s just where we are,” Jones said, adding that he supports expanding funding for school safety.
Jones made his announcement at a Barrow County elementary school, with local superintendent Chris McMichael standing nearby. The superintendent said afterward that his district allows certain trained personnel to carry weapons, but not staffers who interact with children. So teachers are not armed.
”We’re not full all the way in but we do have a toe in,” McMichael said, adding. “We just don’t feel the need yet.” The school board would have to authorize arming teachers, but he said he’d want faculty buy-in first.
Georgia gave school districts the authority on whether or not to arm teachers and other staff in 2014, but few have acted on that ability. The largest district to take any action is the Cobb County School District, which has about 106,000 students, the second largest enrollment in the state. The school board voted last year to allow some staff, but not teachers, to carry weapons to supplement the police force. The district has not said if it has any armed staff aside from resource officers.
Jorge Gomez, Gwinnett’s special assistant to the superintendent, said evaluating staff members who want to participate in a program to arm teachers would be a challenge.
“We’ve got to make sure that the people who are carrying firearms are not only physically (equipped to keep schools safe), but they’re psychologically prepared for the job,” Gomez said, adding that the financial incentive is a concern. “If you provide a $10,000 incentive, there may be a lot of people that might want to sign up just for the $10,000 incentive.”
Gwinnett maintains a staff of more than 100 school resource officers across its 141 schools, and the district requires they have prior law enforcement experience. Officers are also evaluated for their psychological makeup to ensure they’re the right people work with students, Gomez said.
“My concern would be: Will this incentive ensure the proper both psychological and physical training of those individuals to make sure that that doesn’t create a worse nightmare than what we’re trying to solve?” Gomez said.
