Hours after Texas’ deadliest school shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, state Republicans called for efforts to harden schools and arm more teachers.
“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said on Fox News. “We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”
On Tuesday, a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, about 85 miles west of San Antonio, killing at least 19 children and two adults. The shooting was the deadliest in Texas history, surpassing the death toll from the 2018 Santa Fe High School tragedy.
After the Santa Fe shooting, Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled a school safety plan that, among other things, called for the expansion of a program that allows campuses to arm staff. Lawmakers eventually budgeted $100 million for the “hardening” of public schools.
Also on Fox News on Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick suggested Texas did “a lot of things” after the Santa Fe shooting that claimed the lives of 10 people.
“Obviously, we have to do more,” he said, adding that the state has to harden “these targets” so no one can get in except through one entrance.
There’s no assurance that an employee with a handgun can halt a school shooting.
For instance, during the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, an armed school resource officer never went inside the high school or attempted to engage the gunman during the attack.
Reports are circulating that a school police officer was on campus at Robb Elementary on Tuesday. The officer exchanged gunfire with the shooter and was shot and injured, according to Fox News.
The president of one of the nation’s major education groups pushed back on the idea that more teachers should be armed.
“Schools need more mental health professionals, not pistols; teachers need more resources, not revolvers,” said Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, in a statement. “Arming teachers makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to protect students and their families when they go off to school, shop at the grocery store, attend church services, ride the subway, or simply walk down the streets of their neighborhoods.”
Texas schools already have two options to arm teachers and campus staff: appointing school marshals or enacting what’s known as the “Guardian Plan.”
School marshals
School districts, private schools and community colleges can appoint one or more marshals per campus. These marshals, who may be teachers or staff members, have access to a handgun at school.
The purpose is to “prevent the act of murder or serous bodily injury on school premises,” according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, or TCOLE.
Marshals must be up to date on licensing and certification and take an 80-hour training course conducted by a law enforcement academy. Through this training, they learn about physical security, improving campus security, use of force, weapon proficiency and active shooter response.
The names of districts with school marshals in place and names of the employees who are marshals are confidential, said TCOLE spokeswoman Gretchen Grigsby. Currently, Texas has 256 school marshals, she added.
School marshals can only use a handgun under circumstances that would justify the use of deadly force or protection of others as defined under state law, according to the Texas Association of School Boards.
A 2021 law — which went into effect last September — removed restrictions preventing marshals from carrying handguns and requiring the firearm to be in a locked and secured location.
Guardian plan
Under the more loosely regulated “guardian plan,” school boards can authorize employees to carry guns on campus. District officials are directly responsible for determining training plans and the vetting process for their guardians.
“In most cases, school districts limit employee authorization to commissioned peace officers,” a TASB document stated. But, the group notes, some districts grant guardian status to others, including classroom teachers.
The plan was created by Harrold ISD Superintendent David Thweatt in 2007.
“When [an active shooter] comes to the school, they’re going to get swarmed from multiple directions,” Thweatt told the Texas Tribune in 2018. “Armed shooters go where they know there’s going to be little resistance, but if they don’t know where they’re going to get resistance, they’re not going to come to our schools.”
Uvalde school leaders held a meeting in early 2018 asking community members for feedback on what would make their schools safer, according to the Uvalde Leader News.
At the time, two nearby school districts — Nueces Canyon CISD and Utopia ISD — had plans in place to arm staff members. It’s not clear whether Uvalde CISD had a similar plan in place at the time of Tuesday’s shooting.
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