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Old 07-30-2018, 01:16 PM
 
Location: Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA
7,932 posts, read 7,276,082 times
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Quote:
Anyone live in a school district that employs armed ex-cops?



Our local district has armed officers. They are cops, not ex-cops. And I believe each school including the elementary schools has one assigned officer.


I don't have too many details because our kids went to the local Catholic school where of course there aren't any police officers.


Our district contains a population of "urban poor", hence the armed police presence.
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Old 07-30-2018, 01:20 PM
 
Location: Wyoming
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Our school district has a police officer in each of the two large high schools, one who rotates between the two junior highs and one who rotates through the several elementary schools. None are employed by the school, just assigned by the city police department.

They're also considering having a very few volunteer teachers to carry concealed -- like 3 or 4 in each high school. The identity of these teachers would only be known to the principal and a couple other administrators. They'd go through intensive police training and be selected (from the volunteers) based on experience and temperament. As of a few months ago, the first volunteer was in training to be completed over the summer, and then the school board was to make the final decision about whether or not to implement the program.

I'm in favor of it. We don't expect shooters in our schools, but I'm sure that's exactly what parents and staff thought about Sandy Hook, etc. One rural Wyoming school, Cokeville Elementary, was among the first schools in the nation to come under attack by a crazy person. No school is immune from them, so it's best to have some kind of defense in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokevi...hostage_crisis
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Old 07-30-2018, 02:32 PM
 
Location: Knoxville, TN
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I just retired from a school district in suburban Atlanta. We had armed certified police officers in our schools. High schools had one or more assigned full-time. Middle schools had full-time or shared depending on the school. Elementaries had shared officers. I had no problem with uniformed, certified police officers, but I would not want anyone else armed in the schools. Officers undergo continuous training. An armed teacher is not trained to handle a shooter situation and they should not be expected to. If you have ever seen teachers trying to break up a fight in a high school, you would know that the last thing they need to be carrying is a gun....too much risk of a kid getting his/her hands on it. I spoke to one of the certified officers about this and he agreed that even well-trained officers are not all that accurate shooting in a chaotic situation and that teachers would be even less so......again, more risk to the kids.
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Old 07-30-2018, 03:17 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,873 posts, read 59,846,876 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by WyoNewk View Post
Our school district has a police officer in each of the two large high schools, one who rotates between the two junior highs and one who rotates through the several elementary schools. None are employed by the school, just assigned by the city police department.

They're also considering having a very few volunteer teachers to carry concealed -- like 3 or 4 in each high school. The identity of these teachers would only be known to the principal and a couple other administrators. They'd go through intensive police training and be selected (from the volunteers) based on experience and temperament. As of a few months ago, the first volunteer was in training to be completed over the summer, and then the school board was to make the final decision about whether or not to implement the program.

I'm in favor of it. We don't expect shooters in our schools, but I'm sure that's exactly what parents and staff thought about Sandy Hook, etc. One rural Wyoming school, Cokeville Elementary, was among the first schools in the nation to come under attack by a crazy person. No school is immune from them, so it's best to have some kind of defense in place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokevi...hostage_crisis
Don't count on an administrator, especially a Vice Principal, not telling anyone who will listen who the armed teachers are. They'll brag about it at the bar, they'll tell a kid or eleven who it is "in confidence", they'll tell one of the problem students that "If you don't settle down Mr. _______ will put a cap in your ass", or whatever. There are a thousand ways it will get out. A School Board member who disagrees with the policy will out the teachers at a meeting or in an interview.

Like I said, a thousand ways.

And when that happens there will be a kid, or several, in every school who will make it his mission in life to get that gun.

Quote:
Originally Posted by JOinGA View Post
I just retired from a school district in suburban Atlanta. We had armed certified police officers in our schools. High schools had one or more assigned full-time. Middle schools had full-time or shared depending on the school. Elementaries had shared officers. I had no problem with uniformed, certified police officers, but I would not want anyone else armed in the schools. Officers undergo continuous training. An armed teacher is not trained to handle a shooter situation and they should not be expected to. If you have ever seen teachers trying to break up a fight in a high school, you would know that the last thing they need to be carrying is a gun....too much risk of a kid getting his/her hands on it. I spoke to one of the certified officers about this and he agreed that even well-trained officers are not all that accurate shooting in a chaotic situation and that teachers would be even less so......again, more risk to the kids.
Again, if a teacher undergoes the training "Shoot, Don't Shoot" training will have to be done. Essentially the same training police officers go through.

As far as cops being "better shots" than a teacher would be. C'mon. The absolute worst shots out of the people I hunt with are the cops. They can't hit the broad side of a barn if they're standing inside it.

Teachers are trained to break up fights. My (former) system mandated training on how to break up a fight one year and about half of the teachers refused to even go through the training, stating it wasn't their job to break up fights.

Which is/was technically correct. All we had to do was tell the brawlers to stop and then call an administrator or Security. The problem with that for one of my Principals was that the Administrators either weren't even in the building (they usually didn't roll in until around 11, 4 1/4 hours after the first kid got off the buses) or were busy managing their fantasy sports teams if they were there.

Security was directed by that Principal to not leave their assigned posts. The kids knew that so the fights would start away from them.

In fact, a student fight led directly to my retirement. I wouldn't "play ball" when I wrote my report on it.
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Old 07-30-2018, 03:35 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
12,755 posts, read 9,589,859 times
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Thanks, everyone for your replies.

Meeting is at 7 tonight, so we'll see what happens.

The school board already approved having the officers in the schools, this meeting is for approving the funding. They're talking about $50k per year per officer. They would be ex-cops but I'm not sure if they would be familiar with my particular township. I think it's been about 40 years since there was a murder here, and the murderer wasn't even from New Jersey, nor was the person he killed. In other words, this is a very safe area. My hope is the town council will NOT approve funding.
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:05 PM
 
Location: Richmond VA
6,870 posts, read 7,811,823 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by North Beach Person View Post
Dust off your resume because, like it or not, it's coming. Too much money is being thrown out at both the state and federal levels for school systems to ignore it.

That's what happened with SROs 20+ years ago. The Clinton Administration loaded a few billion for school security into other legislation, primarily the Crime Hot Spots initiative.
Nope, not at all worried. I don't know what money you are referring to but there isn't enough of it to put SROs into elementary schools, especially over the objections of a majority of teachers and parents.

We'd go on strike before we do that (and we don't have unions in our state).
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:41 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,873 posts, read 59,846,876 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stagemomma View Post
Nope, not at all worried. I don't know what money you are referring to but there isn't enough of it to put SROs into elementary schools, especially over the objections of a majority of teachers and parents.

We'd go on strike before we do that (and we don't have unions in our state).
North Carolina? No you wouldn't because they'd fire you all in a heartbeat. Besides, when did school boards start listening to teachers? For most of them you're overpaid babysitters that can't make it in the real world who make way more money than you deserve and retire after 20 years with a gold plated pension.

Money?

http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/ReportFile/1...iew_Report.pdf

https://www.the74million.org/article...dept-programs/

https://www.campussafetymagazine.com...-safety-plans/

https://www.securityindustry.org/201...curity-grants/

https://www.education.pa.gov/K-12/Sa...ed-Grants.aspx

The above is just a smattering.
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:44 PM
 
Location: Northern panhandle WV
3,007 posts, read 3,107,889 times
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While I think it is fine to have armed officers in the schools, I think it also makes it likely any school shooter is going to single them out to take out first and depending on how the shooter approaches things the officers might be blindsided.
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:53 PM
 
Location: On the Chesapeake
44,873 posts, read 59,846,876 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by arwenmark View Post
While I think it is fine to have armed officers in the schools, I think it also makes it likely any school shooter is going to single them out to take out first and depending on how the shooter approaches things the officers might be blindsided.
Certainly that's a possibility but that's when procedures come into play.

My one Principal fancied himself the smartest guy in the room (which he wasn't even close to being) on most subjects so he directed our security to maintain static positions. He was quite perturbed when the SRO said no because she wasn't supervised by school staff.

So, because the school system security were assigned to specific places problems developed elsewhere. Of course Principal went nuts but his procedures were thrown back at him. His solution was to order more cameras.

It never did change until he left and the new guy was smarter.
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Old 07-30-2018, 06:57 PM
 
37,409 posts, read 45,595,277 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fox Terrier View Post
How did you feel about having armed persons in the schools?
We have armed personnel in our schools, and in the admin building I work in. I am good with that.
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