Parkland School District Votes Against Arming Teachers 

Florida’s Broward County School Board rejected a proposal to allow educators to carry guns on school campuses in a Tuesday evening vote. The decision came nearly two months after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School, which is in Broward County. The vote was unanimous.

In voting against participation in the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program—a $67 million dollar school safety program named for one of the victims of the Stoneman Douglass shooting which was signed into law by Gov. Rick Scott on March 9—Broward Country School Board officials instead urged that state funds be used toward funding mental health and school resource programs.

“This would mean more guns, the purchase of more guns, the legalization of more guns and more guns brought from the community into schools,” school board member Rosalind Osgood told the Sun-Sentinel. “I have not met one teacher or one student who is in favor of arming teachers in Broward County,” board member Laurie Levinson told CBS Miami.

Scott has said that some of the money initially allocated toward arming teachers in an earlier draft of the law will instead be used to fund more school resource officers. He has also reportedly promised school superintendents that unspent money from the program will be put toward that same end.

This is not the first time the Broward County School Board has come out against the idea of arming school personnel—a proposal strongly supported by President Donald Trump. Three days before Scott signed the new law, the school board passed a resolution against putting guns in the hands of educational professionals. “Teachers are not trained law enforcement officers, and should not be asked or incentivized to keep weapons accessible in their classrooms,” the board wrote.

According to the Sun-Sentinel, not one of Florida’s 10 largest school districts have decided to arm school personnel since the Parkland shooting.