Georgia school districts move to arm teachers

The school shooting in Parkland, Fla., convinced school Superintendent Daniel Brigman that his plan to arm teachers and other Laurens County, Ga., school personnel needed to go beyond the idea phase.

“I’ve had this discussion repeatedly with different boards of education for the last 14 years,” Brigman said. His school district is southeast of Macon and the first in Georgia to make the move. “What happened in Florida heightened the level of awareness and concern that we needed a procedure in place to protect the safety of our schools.”

As students across metro Atlanta and the country head to school each day, the adults in their lives grapple with how to keep kids safe. More police? More guns? Fewer guns? More locks? More cameras? More technology?

Laurens County’s school board approved arming teachers last month. The Florida shooting seemed to set the dominoes falling. Georgia made it legal for school systems to arm teachers in 2012, but this month the Fannin County Board of Education will consider a similar decision, and there are discussions in others, such as Floyd and Bleckley counties. Most metro Atlanta school system leaders have so far declined to consider it, though Clayton County Superintendent Morcease Beasley said after Florida that the issue was “more complicated than a simple yes or no (for or against); it will require a multifaceted response from more than a single entity making a decision.”

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