Putnam County school board discusses arming teachers

The Putnam County school board needs to decide by the beginning of the school year whether it will be arming staff members or getting resource officers.

Monday night, members met for the first time to go over options.

Right now they are leaning toward getting more resource officers, but would have to come up with around a million dollars.

But the sheriff’s office doesn’t think that’s going to happen and it's moving forward with the guardian program, when ultimately the school board still has to vote on it.

“We need guns for protection, because it’s 2018 and so we need them,” resident Cory Daniels said.

Action News Jax told you in February when the sheriff and superintendent unveiled the proposal to train some school district employees to carry guns on campus.

“It scared me as a parent, as I know that there are parents who are scared out there,” school board member Kathleen Jorgensen said.

Jorgensen said she has an open mind, but would like to see resource officers instead of guns on faculty.

“We are trying to handle the problem of guns in schools by putting more guns in schools,” Jorgensen said.

Some parents said as long as staff members get the right training, they don’t see a problem with it.

“As long as they can do the license and they’re able and they’ve never committed a crime before, I don’t see a problem with them getting a gun,” parent Scott Gett said.

But other parents, as well as students, don’t think arming faculty is the solution.

“You never know what can happen,” mother Kylie Upchurch said.

During the meeting, school board members said whatever they decide on, there is nothing that can completely prevent a school shooting like the one in Parkland that killed 17 people.

“Now the kids have to pay the price all over the state of Florida. This is going on everywhere, not just here,” Jorgensen said.

Tuesday, the school board will be meeting at C.H. Price Middle School for regular meeting and will create committees for this issue.

The sheriff will be there too and thinks a vote will take place on this, but school board members said they don’t plan to.

Cox Media Group