LANTANA, Fla. — Parents should care about making sure their kids are safe at school.
In Washington, a Senator from Florida is trying to pass a bill that he thinks will go even further.
In Florida, every school is meant to have someone with a gun on campus. This could be a guard with a gun or a police officer.
U.S. Sen. Rick Scott wants that to be a law in every state.
After a shooting last month at a Christian school in Nashville that killed three kids and three adults, U.S. Senator Rick Scott wants every school in the country to have an armed cop on campus.
“I believe it makes everyone feel better. Why? The Executive Director of Palm Beach Maritime Academy Elementary and Secondary Schools, Marie Turchiaro, said, “Well because I think you feel like you have a fighting chance.”
Turchiaro says it makes sense to have an armed guard at school.
“The police always tell us that the first two or three minutes are the most important,” she said. “At least we have someone here who can fight back.”
Sen. Scott wants to use the $80 billion that was supposed to go to the IRS to pay for an armed cop in every school in the country.
Turchiaro, who is in charge of two schools with a total of about 1,100 kids, hopes that Congress will pass the bill.
Turchiaro said, “I just know that it’s a good program and that schools need to have enough money for it.”
She says that Florida law says every school must have a guard with a gun, but the state doesn’t give schools enough money to pay for that.
Turchiaro says that the Palm Beach Maritime Academy gets $76,000 a year from the state to pay for two armed guards. This shows the trouble with money. One at their grade school and one at their middle school. She says, though, that’s only about half of how much it really costs. She says that this fiscal year, the Palm Beach Maritime Academy has already spent $129,000 on two armed guards.
So, if the bill becomes law, she would be glad to get the government money it would bring.
“I really like the idea. I think that if it will keep our kids safe, we should do it. “We should do anything to protect the kids,” said the grandma of a Palm Beach County student, Clara McCutcheon.
“I’m for cops with guns. But I think the problem is a lot bigger than just having a gun cop,” said Kimberly Ibebunjo, a middle school mom from West Palm Beach with two kids.
Some people say that putting armed guards in all U.S. schools sounds good, but that the best way to make schools safer is to give kids more mental health care before they turn violent.
We asked the Palm Beach County School District and the other school districts in our area what they thought of Sen. Scott’s bill.
