October 23, 2024
ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia's second-largest school district on Thursday approved a policy allowing some employees who aren't certified police officers to carry guns in schools but excluded teachers from those who can be armed.
The 4-2 vote by suburban Atlanta's Cobb County school board split along partisan lines.
Georgia schools have been able to arm teachers and other personnel under a state law passed in 2014. After a 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, a handful of Georgia's 180 districts, all with much lower enrollments, had approved policies to arm non-officers on campus. The move in the 106,000-student Cobb school district, one of the nation's 25 largest, is explicitly a response to the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas that killed 19 students and two teachers last May.
Cobb County Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told board members before the vote that the district only has 67 officers currently for its 114 schools, and that competition to hire police officers is intense.
“If the board gave me a blank check and said go hire a school resource officer for every school in Cobb County, I could not do that," Ragsdale said.
The policy would have originally allowed teachers to be approved to carry weapons if they had “unique qualifications," but Ragsdale removed that part of the proposal. Teachers would not be allowed to carry guns.
“I am not in favor of arming teachers. However I am in favor of investigating all options so we could hire retired military, retired law enforcement," Ragsdale said.
Ragsdale discussed hiring such people and paying them less than certified police officers. But it remained unclear whether the district intends for everyone authorized to carry a gun to be a full-time security employee, or whether the district might also authorize employees who primarily have other duties. A school district spokesperson did not respond to emails and a phone call and a text seeking comment.
The policy says that people would have to be trained, and Ragsdale pledged that they would undergo much the same training as certified school resource officers. He said there would also be a psychological evaluation and that school district Police Chief Ron Storey would get the final say on approvals. As per state law, no employee could be penalized for refusing to carry a gun. Their names and all other records would be kept secret.
