Texas governor’s school safety plan sees up to 1 in 8 teachers/staff armed
Governor Greg Abbott has proposed that Texas schools arm as many as one staff for every four to five classrooms. He also wants them to have guns within easy reach, not locked away in safes as currently required by Texas law.
Since about half of school districts’ total staff are teachers, this means that a maximum of about 10–12% of Texas school personnel could end up armed, or one in eight to ten staff. The proposal is one of about 40 recommendations and directives issued by the governor yesterday to “harden” schools against threats from school shooters.
“Arming teachers, and not knowing who is armed, that is what we need,” the governor says, citing approvingly a Santa Fe shooting survivor who participated in a recent roundtable meeting with the governor and urged this measure.
Texas’ existing school marshals program derives from the 2013 Protection of Texas Children Act that grants authority to school districts to commission specially trained staff members as armed marshals. These staff are required to go through an 80-hour course that includes weapons training.
Abbott writes in a policy document released yesterday, “Current law only allows for one school marshal for every 200 students, equal to about one marshal for every 8–10 classrooms. Schools should be allowed to recruit up to one marshal for every 100 students, or about one marshal for every 4–5 classrooms, to provide for more comprehensive campus protection.”
In order to achieve this aim the governor has ordered the Texas Education Agency to offer free training to school districts throughout this summer so that immediately upon reopening of Texas schools for the 2018–2019 school year there will be more armed personnel on campuses. Abbott has authorized funds from the Governor’s Criminal Justice Division to cover the costs of these trainings.
Expanding the Marshals Program
However, other changes proposed by Abbott will require legislative action, including lifting the limit on the number of marshals per classroom, as well as removing the firearm storage requirement at schools. “Current law requires school marshals to store their firearms in a safe while on campus, making the weapon hard to access and use in the event of a crisis. Leaving the marshal’s weapon locked away counters the purpose of having armed security on campus in the first place. The storage requirement should be repealed, allowing marshals to keep their firearms on their persons,” says Abbott.
In remarks at a press conference yesterday in Dallas announcing the plan, Abbott highlighted that no school will be compelled to armed its personnel: “We understand that some schools may choose not to adopt it.” Yet the governor is taking steps to boost enrollments in the program including by stripping out more than 12 hours of instruction from the current 80-hour course required to obtain licensure as a school marshall.
“The burdensome instructional course has contributed to limited adoption of the school marshal program,” Abbott explained. Among the instructional materials that Abbott proposes removing is an explanation of how the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure pertains to school marshals. Abbot says his priority is training educators in how to respond to active shooter scenarios.
School Resource Officers
A second Texas program could further boost the number of armed personnel at Texas public schools. School Resource Officers, unlike marshalls, are uniformed law enforcement personnel. Abbott says that he has received numerous recommendations to increase the number of School Resource Officers in schools and he urges school districts to prioritize the ex-military and police.
“Veterans who complete tailored training and background checks should have the ability to once again serve their communities in times of need.”
The governor further wants the legislature to amend a law that prevents charter schools from using this program.
‘Pistol-packing first grade teachers’
Critics of school marshals programs say they make schools less safe, not more safe, by putting guns into the hands of possibly ill-trained personnel, besides detracting from the educational environment. Democratic Governor Jay Inslee of Washington recently criticized such an approach during a roundtable with President Donald Trump: “Speaking as a grandfather, speaking as governor of the state of Washington, I have listened to the people who would be affected by that — I have listened to the biology teachers and they don’t want to do that.”
“I have listened to the first grade teachers that don’t want to be pistol-packing first grade teachers… Educators should educate, and they should not be foisted upon this responsibility of packing heat in first grade classrooms,” said Inslee.
Dan Patrick, the governor’s deputy, disagrees, saying in a recent television interview, “our teachers are part of that well-run militia,” adding, “We already allow teachers to carry — but we leave it up to local control, up to the superintendent, up to the teachers and up to the parents to make that decision.”
Abbott’s plan likewise stresses, “Contrary to some criticism that elementary school teachers, for example, are hired to educate students rather than wield guns, the marshal program is not intended to arm all teachers or to require any teacher to be armed against their will. Instead, its purpose is to arm any willing school staff member, which often includes [non-instructional] school personnel other than teachers.”
