I try to imagine Miss Lawson, my kindergarten teacher, packing heat. Mrs. Roston? Miss Bletsch? Of course, in my day, schools didn't have security officers. We had vice principals.
Forty-five percent of Americans support arming teachers as a school safety strategy, according to a new poll by PDK, an educators' group, reports Libby Stanford in Education Week.
I'm surprised it's so high. I guess the reason is Uvalde: Police came, but didn't act until it was too late.
Eighty percent “strongly/somewhat support” armed police in schools, metal detectors, and mental health screenings of students.
Educators aren't eager to bear arms: 75 percent of teachers oppose arming teachers in a July American Federation of Teachers survey.
As schools reopen, parents who were worried about Covid-19 now seem more worried about a crazed gunman. I wonder how many kids won't show up at school because parents see school as unsafe.
As expected, the Centers for Disease control has issued new Covid-19 guidelines:
Schools need not keep students six feet apart or quarantine those exposed to the virus.
"Many Americans dispensed with practices such as social distancing, quarantine and mask-wearing long ago," notes Emily Anthes in the New York Times.
I would think the support for armed teachers varies wildly depending on where you ask the question. I can't imagine many in urban CA agreeing, but I can see high percentages in rural and more gun-accepting places. It would be interesting in a few years to see where there was uptake in Ohio, which has a recent law allowing it.
Ann in L.A.
When in reality, it would be better to support firing vice principals, teachers, etc., who try to involve the security officers in school discipline. My cousin has that at his school. So far his boss has held the line. The security officer needs to be someone students feel free to talk to without recrimination of the rules, if say they know/hear of a student with a gun or talking about doing something. That a kid was out of class when they learned this is a school official problem, not a security problem.
And this is not a nice suburban school, one of his 5th graders had been moved to the school because he was under indictment for armed robbery.