NEA members, however, are strongly opposed to arming teachers and other school personnel, an idea floated by President Trump a few days after the Parkland shooting and that was formally proposed on March 12. In addition to doubling down on arming educators, Trump also announced he was appointing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to lead a Federal Commission on School Safety to study the issue.
arming
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The idea of arming teachers is ill-conceived, preposterous, and dangerous," said NEA President Lily Eskelsen García. "This new national survey of educators confirms that. Arming teachers and other school personnel does nothing to prevent gun violence. In fact, quite the contrary, educators would feel less safe if school personnel were armed."
Eskelsen García said the debate over arming teachers has become a distraction from the very real and urgent problem that many lawmakers would prefer to ignore: the ease at which dangerous individuals can buy weapons that can kill a great number of people in a very short amount of time.
However, some states have broad immunity laws that restrict lawsuits against public employees, including teachers. Schools in those states may be more willing to accept the risk of injury or death that comes with arming school staff.
Insurance coverage of any legal fees and monetary damages or settlements will vary depending on the policy and circumstances. Arming educators is an emerging risk, and some insurance carriers will not insure armed educators, so schools should seek advice from their licensed insurance broker regarding liability coverage. UE members contemplating arming educators also should contact their UE underwriter to determine if coverage is available and other underwriting criteria is needed. Overall, if the practice of arming educators becomes common and more injuries result, it may significantly increase the cost of insuring schools.
Second, the anticipation of violence can lead to increased anxiety, fear, and depression. Given the sensationalized and speculative nature of many mass school shootings that has more recently fed the perception that schools are unsafe, arming teachers likely would heighten levels of anxiety and negatively affect a school's climate for teaching and learning.
Hidalgo says her school has armed police officers and this makes her feel safer. The school also carries out drills to practice how to react to violence and other serious situations. But she does not think arming teachers would help solve the problem.
Clugston says he believes arming teachers works as a deterrent to violence by sending a clear message to would-be attackers. His district places large signs in front of all its school buildings warning that armed teachers and employees are on the property.
NASP, along with the National Association of School Resource Officers, the National Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, the American School Counselor Association, and the School Social Work Association of America, released A Framework for Safe and Successful Schools outlining the core components of school safety. This includes improving access to school-employed mental health professionals like school psychologists, school counselors, and school social workers, who serve on the frontlines of meeting students' mental health needs and provide threat assessments for students at risk of harming themselves or others. Additionally, we need improved coordination and collaboration between school staff, community mental health providers, law enforcement, and other first responders to close gaps in response to at-risk students and ensure they receive the interventions and supports they need.
Supporters of such proposals say they could serve as a deterrent or help stop shooters when law enforcement cannot respond in time. But opponents, including law enforcement officials and teachers unions, say arming educators would put them in difficult situations and possibly make students less safe.
Supporters of such proposals say they could serve as a deterrent or help stop shooters when law enforcement cannot respond in time. But opponents, including teachers unions and some law enforcement officials, say arming educators could backfire and possibly make students less safe.
More still oppose (53%) than favor (41%) the U.S. sending arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government, but support for arming Ukraine is up 11 points since April 2014, when opposition outweighed support by about two-to-one (30% favored, 62% opposed).
Overall, 51% of Republicans support the U.S. sending arms and military supplies to the Ukrainian government, while 45% are opposed. By contrast, Democrats (55% oppose, 40% favor) and independents (56% oppose, 38% favor) on balance oppose the U.S. taking these actions. Despite current differences in views, both Republicans and Democrats have become 14 points more likely to support the U.S. arming the Ukrainian government since last April.
Note: If you have AHRS_EKF_TYPE set to 2 or 3 (you are using one of the EKFs) then it is particularly important that you have arming checks enabled for INS. Flying EKF without arming checks may cause acrash.
ARMING_CHECK: this controls what checks the autopilot doesbefore arming is allowed. The default is 1, meaning all checks aredone. Most users should leave it at 1, as the arming checks areimportant to ensure the autopilot is ready. See below.
ARMING_RUDDER: This parameter allows you to configure rudderbased arming/disarming. The default is 1, meaning you are able toarm with right rudder. If you set this to 2 you can also disarmwith left rudder. If you set this to 0 then you will only be ableto arm/disarm via a ground station or RC channel input using its RCx_OPTION.
if ARMING_RUDDER is set to 2, then held left rudder can disarm the vehicle in ANY mode, if the autopilot judges that the vehicle is not flying. This flying check CAN be incorrect under certain extreme circumstances, and disarming of the vehicle while still in flight, while rare, could occur.
Before allowing arming the autopilot checks a set of conditions. Allconditions must pass for arming to be allowed. If any condition failsthen a message explaining what failed is set to the GCS. Any or all of thePre-Arming Checks can be disabled, but it is not recommended. See the Pre-Arm Safety Checks topic for more information.
Rather than arming school faculty or staff, NASRO recommends that sufficient federal, state and/or local funding be made available to place at least one carefully selected, specially trained school resource officer in every school in the nation. NASRO further recommends that large schools be provided more than one SRO.
Now, after the second-deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, the question of arming teachers has again resurfaced.
Moreover, the argument that teachers should be armed ignores the fact that teachers unions and gun violence prevention groups largely oppose this proposition. Rather than arming teachers and other school personnel, they support gun control and other measures to prevent school shootings.
Research bears this out. After the Parkland shooting in 2018, Lauren Willner, assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the College of Health and Human Services at San Diego State University, conducted research about how teachers felt about the prospect of arming themselves in school. She surveyed 2,926 educators from each state and the territory of Guam, finding that 95 percent said teachers should not be required to carry firearms. Only 6 percent said they were comfortable firing a weapon to stop a potential shooter, despite the fact that 16 percent of respondents were gun owners and 25 percent said they had more than minimal familiarity with firearms.
After an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two teachers \u2014 and injured 17 others \u2014 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday, the state\u2019s attorney general, Ken Paxton, said arming teachers could prevent more mass atrocities at schools in the future.\n\n\n\n\u201cWe can\u2019t stop bad people from doing bad things,\u201d he told Fox News. \u201cWe can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. \u2026 That, in my opinion, is the best answer.\u201d\n\n\n\nPaxton\u2019s response is not a new one. After a school shooting claimed the lives of 17 students and adults in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, then-President Donald Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos also expressed support for giving guns to teachers. More than 15 states, including Texas, allow teachers, security personnel or permit holders in schools to have guns, according to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun violence prevention organization. \n\n\n\nNow, after the second-deadliest school shooting since 20 children and six adults were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, the question of arming teachers has again resurfaced. \n\n\n\nBut allowing school personnel to carry guns hasn\u2019t thwarted mass shootings at schools. The armed school safety officer in Parkland failed to stop the gunman. Officials in Texas have released conflicting statements about whether there was an armed school officer on campus. Overall, 42 acts of gun violence took place at schools in 2021, and 27 have occurred so far this year. \n\n\n\nThere are also concerns about safety even if guns are being brought to school with the intent to protect students. Ron Avi Astor, a UCLA social welfare professor and expert in school violence, said that he had not seen data proving that armed teachers could prevent shootings \u2014 but that available data suggests more guns in schools could lead to more danger. \n\n\n\nA young girl holds flowers outside the Willie de Leon Civic Center where people gather to mourn in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022.\n (ALLISON DINNER\/AFP\/Getty Images)\n\n\n\n\u201cGuns can go off by accident and harm the person who has the gun and other people around,\u201d he said. \u201cIf people are not super highly trained \u2026 they can shoot kids, shoot teachers, shoot other people by accident.\u201d \n\n\n\nMoreover, the argument that teachers should be armed ignores the fact that teachers unions and gun violence prevention groups largely oppose this proposition. Rather than arming teachers and other school personnel, they support gun control and other measures to prevent school shootings.\n\n\n\n\u201cWe oppose arming teachers,\u201d said Clay Robison, a spokesperson for the Texas State Teachers Association. \u201cTeachers are trained to teach and nurture children. They are not trained to be armed security guards.\u201d\n\n\n\nRobison added that the loosening of pandemic measures and the curriculum fights that have dominated the headlines the past two years essentially left many teachers feeling like they were already under attack before this latest school shooting.\n\n\n\nRob D'Amico, spokesperson for the Texas American Federation of Teachers, pointed out that, at least among Texas AFT members surveyed by the organization, many teachers are already at a breaking point without the emotional toll of school shootings. Low pay and overwork are the two biggest drivers of Texas teachers polled by the organization considering leaving their profession, he said. \n\n\n\n\u201cUnfortunately, with another school shooting, that adds yet another layer,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re devastated and they\u2019re hurting terribly.\u201d\n\n\n\nAs for whether teachers should be armed, D\u2019Amico said that Texas already has a school marshal program \u2014 spurred by the Sandy Hook shooting \u2014 in which school districts can appoint trained employees, including teachers, to carry a gun on campus to respond to active shooters. \n\n\n\n\u201cWe need less guns around school campuses, not more,\u201d he said, noting that the group opposes teachers carrying in schools.\n\n\n\n\n\nThe Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control advocacy group founded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords after she was injured in a 2011 mass shooting at her home district in Arizona, has tracked guns being mishandled in schools since 2014, research director Kelly Drane said. \n\n\n\nThrough collecting local news reports, the group has tracked nearly 100 cases of school officials leaving guns unattended in areas where students later found them, as well as parents or school employees unintentionally firing guns or guns being mishandled during student discipline cases. \n\n\n\nNina Vinik, founder and executive director of the gun violence prevention group Project Unloaded, said calling for more guns to address the nation\u2019s gun violence problem is the wrong approach. \n\n\n\n\u201cIt's the proliferation of guns in our country and the easy access to those guns that is responsible for the level of gun violence that we're seeing in our communities,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd the idea that having teachers or other adults with guns is going to solve this problem, I think is ludicrous. And if you ask teachers, they believe the same thing.\u201d\n\n\n\nResearch bears this out. After the Parkland shooting in 2018, Lauren Willner, assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the College of Health and Human Services at San Diego State University, conducted research about how teachers felt about the prospect of arming themselves in school. She surveyed 2,926 educators from each state and the territory of Guam, finding that 95 percent said teachers should not be required to carry firearms. Only 6 percent said they were comfortable firing a weapon to stop a potential shooter, despite the fact that 16 percent of respondents were gun owners and 25 percent said they had more than minimal familiarity with firearms. \n\n\n\n\u201cOverall, regardless of whether they\u2019re gun owners or are in favor of the Second Amendment, they still do not believe that this [arming themselves in schools] is the right solution for the problem,\u201d Willner said.\n\n\n\nTeachers, her research found, believe their role is to educate students and not to serve as protectors in schools. In addition, they view gun violence as a public health crisis that needs to be addressed as such, she said.\n\n\n\nStudents and family members holds hands around a makeshift memorial in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on February 18, 2018 in Parkland, Florida.\n (Mark Wilson\/Getty Images)\n\n\n\nWillner said that in addition, students and families, especially in communities of color, feel uneasy about armed personnel in schools. After the 2020 Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, for example, many students and activists demanded that schools cut funding to school police departments.\n\n\n\n\u201cWe do know from research that's been done that the officers that are placed at the schools are very minimally effective, and they actually cause more issues to the school community, particularly in urban neighborhoods, and schools where they're predominantly serving students of color,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re often seen as more of an issue than they are a solution.\u201d\n\n\n\nAde Osadolor-Hernandez, a national advisory board member for Students Demand Action, which is affiliated with Everytown, said she does not support armed teachers on campus. \n\n\n\n\u201cI think arming teachers only creates a greater state of fear and anxiety,\u201d said Osadolor-Hernandez, who is from Southlake, Texas. \u201cIt is extremely disheartening to see that people believe that is the solution to prevent gun violence and to stop school shootings and mass shootings from happening.\u201d \n\n\n\nNow 20, Osadolor-Hernandez was in high school when the Parkland shooting occurred and said lawmakers need to pass legislation to prevent and reduce gun violence. She identifies as Latinx and said communities of color, such as the largely Latinx city of Uvalde, are particularly vulnerable. \n\n\n\n\u201cI think it's extremely important to realize that the Black and Latinx communities have been extremely brutalized by gun violence,\u201d she said. \u201cThey have experienced it at a higher rate than their White peers.\u201d \n\n\n\nParents have also said that they don\u2019t think arming teachers will make students safer. Wendy Gonzales-Neal, head of the Texas chapter of the National Parents Union, is a mother and grandmother in Houston. In 2014, she said, one of her son\u2019s classmates was found with a gun but other students reported him before he hurt himself or others. She supports security officers or law enforcement having guns but not teachers themselves. She said that teachers have enough to worry about without the added stress of carrying a firearm and wondering what would happen if a student or someone else managed to take their weapon.\n\n\n\n\n\n\u201cI wouldn't feel safe knowing that a teacher or staff member have [firearms],\u201d she said. \u201cNow, if the school has their own police department, that's fine, or even a marshal on campus, because they're trained to do these types of situations.\u201d\n\n\n\nOverall, however, Gonzales-Neal would like to see Texas schools invest more in student health and anti-bullying measures than arming teachers, she said. That Texas lowered the age to buy a gun to 18 \u2014 with certain eligibility requirements \u2014 also concerns her. The Uvalde shooter reportedly bought his firearms on his 18th birthday.\n\n\n\nVinik raised concerns about Texas relaxing gun laws while arguing that the entire nation is failing to keep children safe in schools. \n\n\n\n\u201cThat really is just a powerful indictment on our country, that we somehow have chosen not to protect our youngest members when we send them off to school because this happens again and again,\u201d she said. \u201cWe just lack the political will to address this in the way it needs to be.\u201d\n\n\n","post_title":"After Uvalde school shooting, Texas attorney general suggests arming teachers. Educators disagree.","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"uvalde-school-shooting-texas-attorney-general-suggests-arming-teachers","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-05-26 15:24:59","post_modified_gmt":"2022-05-26 20:24:59","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/?p=39560","menu_order":0,"post_type":"post","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},"authors":["name":"Nadra Nittle","slug":"nadra-nittle","taxonomy":"author","description":"Nadra Nittle is our education reporter. She was previously a senior reporter for Civil Eats and a staff reporter for Vox Media and the Long Beach Press-Telegram, where she covered K-12 education. She has a master's degree in teaching, and her writing has also appeared in publications including The Guardian, Business Insider, The Atlantic, BBC News, NBC News and EdSource.","parent":0,"count":59,"filter":"raw","link":"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/author\/nadra-nittle","name":"Orion Rummler","slug":"orion-rummler","taxonomy":"author","description":"Orion Rummler is our LGBTQ+ reporter\u00a0focusing on state politics, breaking news and the underreported ways that trans and queer people are marginalized. He previously covered breaking news for Axios and contributed research to \u201cAxios on HBO.\u201d ","parent":0,"count":123,"filter":"raw","link":"https:\/\/19thnews.org\/author\/orion-rummler"]} Up Next Election 2022 2ff7e9595c
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