The Polk County School Board took up the issue of school safety at a work session Tuesday.
- Parkland mass shooting major topic of school board meeting
- Sheriff discusses, pushes for 'Guardian' program usage
- School board member Townsend opposed to arming teachers
Polk Sheriff Grady Judd spoke to the board about the costs of providing upgraded security and the potential for training and arming school employees.
Judd told board members that it would cost up to $16 million a year to provide school resource officers at all public and charter schools that don't already have them.
He also advocated for the school district to use the new state school safety law that would allow for training school workers who volunteered to be armed with a gun. Under the "Guardian" program, the employees would have to go through a background check and get 140 hours of training.
"If some crazed killer has gotten through all our prevention, all our security and is walking down a hallway with a gun towards your child's classroom, do you want someone there with a gun that is well trained and knows how to use it," said Judd.
The Parkland mass shooting a month ago was a major topic during the meeting. Parkland parent Andy Pollock spoke to the board.
His daughter, Meadow, was shot to death. He was in favor of the "Guardian" program.
"And if I could give advice to a school board to save a child's life, I thought it would be worth driving up here three hours to tell them about my experience," he said.
Board member Billy Townsend speaks during Tuesday's meeting. (Rick Elmhorst, staff)
Some board members seemed to favor arming school workers with guns or at least open to the idea, but board member Bill Townsend opposed the idea and was critical of sheriff Judd for promoting it.
"Fifteen hundred guns in our schools would kill kids at scale over time by accident," said Townsend.
The school board hasn't set a date to make a decision on the school safety proposals.