ATLANTA — Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones is proposing a plan for the state to pay teachers an extra $10,000 a year if they volunteer to undergo firearms training and then arm themselves in the classrooms as a way to enhance school safety and security.
It would be up to local school boards to decide if they want their teachers to participate. The plan is already sparking intense debate.
“Well I think anytime you have trained individuals that can jump into--at a moment's notice when you do have bad actors that want to unfortunately harm children-- it’s better than no options whatsoever,” Jones said Wednesday.
Jones will ask the legislature to approve a plan to pay local school boards that want to hire more armed resource officers and want to provide firearms training to their teachers who are willing to carry guns on the job--one more way, Jones said, to protect children.
“I’m a father of a 14 and 11 year old,” Jones said, “and unfortunately one of the concerns that you have as a parent nowadays is whether or not you can feel like they're safe in school zones. And a lot of local communities, local jurisdictions have already taken the initiative and hired their local sheriff's departments or the local law enforcement agencies and all the security personnel, to man school facilities. A lot counties, or school systems, have limited resources. And what we're doing here is giving them more options and giving them the ability to have state dollars that would go towards improving school safety. Because of these mass shootings that we've seen around the country, we’re trying to be proactive about being very serious about protecting our youth.”
It was in 2014 when Georgia lawmakers first authorized local school boards to arm their teachers and other employees—at the school district’s own expense.
Since then, almost all school boards have said “no thanks.”
As it is, out of Georgia’s 180 public school districts, at least four of them do allow employees to carry guns on the job, including Cobb County School District since last year.
Veteran teacher Lisa Morgan, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said there are more effective ways for the state to help schools protect schools from intruders.
“The solution is not introducing more weapons into our schools,” Morgan said.
She said teachers are already, all too often, targets of classroom violence themselves.
“The potential for what could happen if a student attacks them, that is not the kind of situation we need to be setting up in our schools and in our classrooms,” Morgan said.
Jones believes school boards will be ready to give the program a try as a way of giving teachers an incentive to volunteer.
“I predict that we will have school systems that will take advantage of it,” he said. “You'll have some that will not.”
There is no estimate yet of how much money the program might cost the state.
Jones said details will be ready for lawmakers to study and debate once the legislature convenes in January.