On Tuesday, March 20, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam recommended spending $30 million to help improve school safety. Haslam stated that Tennessee children “deserve to learn in a safe and secure environment,” according to a news release from Haslam’s office.
The $30 million proposal to amend the 2018-2019 budget, which is to be considered by the General Assembly in the next few weeks, comes during on-going national debates about how to best protect Tennessee students in the wake of school shootings like the ones that recently took place in Marshall County, Kentucky, and in Parkland, Florida.
The news of this budget proposal comes just hours after another shooting in Maryland injured three students at Great Mills High School; one of those students died a few days later.
According to TN.gov, funding includes $25 million in nonrecurring and $5.2 million in recurring school safety grants. To gain the necessary knowledge of what each school requires, the governor appointed a School Safety Working Group to review safety policies and procedures in Tennessee. Each of these officials is charged with visiting schools in the state and assessing specific security needs, as well as fielding safety concerns from teachers, administrators, parents and law enforcement. Before the 2018-2019 school year begins, a full assessment from the group’s recommendations will serve as a basis for state action and approved school safety measures.
Haslam said, “The [School Safety Working group] review will be wide ranging but include specific items, such as entry to and exit from schools, training and availability of school resource officers and in-school mental health resources for students.”
Some of the more popular ideas being proposed include placing an School Resource Officer (SRO) in every school, allowing teachers to be trained and armed, as well as providing more training for school officials to identify and help students with mental issues.
State Representative John Fogerty said he’s “very thankful” for Governor Haslam’s proposed budget amendment, but he is skeptical that it will be enough. He feels that placing an SRO in every school will be too costly.
Although it will be a little while before specific information is released concerning Governor Haslam’s new plan, State Senator Mike Bell did state that the information should be released by the time the Legislature end it’s session in the next four weeks.
