The nice private K-12 school where my kids attended HS made a nice little break room for local police officers in their new parking structure—air conditioned, desk and chairs. They hang out and write their reports there. They are the only armed presences on the tiny campus—no violence, very safe area.
I believe our HS is part of the regular patrol for our police force. There’s a parking space out front labeled for police, and a squad car is always there. As a police officer, I assume s/he is armed.
We recently hired a security/safety director coming off of 20+ years in the Secret Service, the last 5 in the Presidential protection division. It will be interesting to see changes he makes.
The question we don’t know if the presence of a qualified LEO on-site has prevented other tragedies. It definitely may stop some less horrific crimes and violence as well as a being available for medical emergencies.
It won’t stop all, but it is worthwhile.
Our high school had them onsite and that was thirty years ago. It’s not new everywhere.
The high school my kids go to has a full time and part time SRO, who are armed sheriff’s deputies. All of the high schools in our district have at least 1 full time, and our middle schools and elementary schools each have part-time officers (e.g., two elementary schools within a mile or two of each other share an officer). The officers don’t direct traffic and aren’t necessarily in the building (often outside monitoring entrances). The SROs coordinate multi-jurisdictional responses to threats, work with district and school security, and are at the ready for the worst. I think a key part of why the parents and community are supportive of this is that SROs are carefully selected–they have to apply and have “the will and the skill”–the SRO position isn’t a cushy pre-retirement big.
We have a fairly new superintendent, and when he started he held a bunch of “town hall” meetings where school security was a big topic. Our community supported the existing SRO model and was VERY against armed non-SRO paid guards, armed volunteers, or armed teachers.
I worked in a District that now has former police officers at every school main entrance, and they are armed…and not concealed at all.
IIRC, Columbine had armed folks on campus. Sadly it was not a deterrent.
Just seems to me a big risk that a weapon can easily be taken from an armed guard. It makes the weapon constantly available to anyone with a baseball bat and the element of surprise.
In a recent school incident, an armed private security guard apprehended one of the armed suspects.
Our large public school district has its own police force. I don’t remember an officer at their elementary school, there was one at the middle school and their high school has at least four full time officers, up from maybe two officers last year.
The one officer I recognize seems to always be there - mornings, evening meetings and events, at the stadium for weekend football games. I find his presence comforting because I have spoken to him about how he does the job and I can see him watching over the children.
When dumb or frightening things have happened, I have noticed district police vehicles stationed around the school.
Our school system has them in all high schools. There was an SRO in S1’s school when he was a freshman in 2004. SROs may date further back than that. The county is proposing to almost double the number in the upcoming budget.
Initial reports were that in the recent Corado incident, that armed private guard shot at and missed a policeman and did shoot an innocent student. I am in no way critical of his conduct-I am sure it was very stressful, fast paced and difficult, and he did the best he could. Just a reality check on the actual success rate of armed security in these events
^From the information I could find, whether the armed security guard fired his gun at all or hit a student is still under dispute. An armed security guard did capture the second shooter.
Same thing in the Parkland shooting. The SRO not only didn’t enter the building to confront the shooter, he told arriving officers to stay outside as well. He has now been arrested for his actions. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/parkland-scot-peterson.html
Having an SRO at most schools is a very expensive waste of money that could be used to actually educate kids. It’s not about security, it’s about window dressing to pacify parents.
Most SROs aren’t cowards. That man could have saved many lives. There’s no district in America where the security costs are changing the educational outcomes of a school.
As far as I know, all of the schools around here have one armed officer in duty. At my kids’ HS, his car is always parked out front. We are in a part of town considered “safe” and higher income but still have gangs and there was a school shooting at one of the other HS in the district…
I work in the city district and my school has 3 security guards and an armed officer.
No, i don’t feel any safer because if a kid or adult wants to sneak in a weapon, it’s not that hard and they could still do quite a bit of damage before caught.
There are numerous examples of SROs preventing violence in schools. Just last year there was a fatal shooting in a MD HS that could have been much worse if not for the SRO responding within a minute and engaging the shooter.
Which incident was that? In the Maryland incident I know, the SRO missed the shooter, and the shooter shot himself in the head.
My school district has SROs (armed) in all secondary schools. There are also security assistants in every school. I questioned my friend, who works in a high school. The SRO spends a lot of time hanging out in the front by the admin buildings, the same location where the security assistant sits (whose main purpose is checking in visitors).
Unfortunately, some of the high schools do not have locked doors all the time. And the school system doesn’t seem to care…
If a school district is spending millions of dollars on security, that is money that is not being spent on education. The money comes from somewhere and is a finite resource. There is no magic wand. So, we have choices on what to do with the limited funds. Spending money on an SRO absolutely impacts education. In some cases that might make sense because the presence of the SRO is so critical education might not be possible without the SRO, but in other cases that is spending that does nothing to contribute to education.
I suspect people who feel better that there is an armed SRO ‘protecting’ their school from school shooters haven’t spent much time at the range. Anyone who has spent time at a shooting range will know that the LEOs are generally pretty lousy shots, not much better than the general public. And they’re armed with a handgun, not a rifle. Handguns are not precise; they’re accurate for relatively short distances.
So let’s think here - most school shooters have been males in their teens and 20s carrying rifles. SROs are 20-30 years older with commensurately slower reaction time and fitness, are carrying a handgun that’s only accurate at close range and only then if they are decent shots and good under pressure. And all this is happening in a venue surrounded by innocent bystanders. If I had to bet on this outcome, the least awful scenario is that only the SRO gets shot and that happens mercifully quickly before the SRO manages to shoot too many students with his/her stray shots.
This is about making people feel better and it’s not just an expensive way to do it, it’s actually risking the lives of the students if an SRO is expected to return fire.
The parents are extremely thankful for an armed SRO.