Putting an armed security officer in every school gains Pa. Senate panel’s support

Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering requiring every public school building to have a trained armed security officer present during school hours.

The Senate Education Committee on a party-line vote sent legislation to the full Senate for consideration that would impose this mandate, starting in 2024-25.

Having an armed school police officer, school resource officer or school security guard present at extracurricular activities would be up to the school’s discretion.

Sen. Mike Regan, the bill’s sponsor, said schools now the option of hiring a security officer, and only about half of them do. That includes the Altoona Area School District and the Pittston Area School District which approved placing security guards armed with shotguns and AR-15s in schools.

“You might have one school district that has done a lot of things to protect their children and another because of whatever their beliefs are one way or the other are doing nothing to protect our children and I think that’s not fair,” said Regan, R-Cumberland/York counties.

He has offered various iterations of this legislation since the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting only to have them fail to gain traction. Since then, Regan said there has been over 200 school shootings across the country that resulted in a death and this year there have been more than 200 incidents that resulted in injury or death.

His bill would require the armed school safety personnel to comply with rigorous training and certification requirements, including lethal weapons training and guidance on interacting with students.

“Is it perfect? No. Is it going to be comprehensive? No. but it will give our kids a chance if there’s an armed intruder or an armed person within the school,” Regan said. “We need to do this now before another tragedy strikes a school full of children.”

This measure would be similar to a law that took effect this year in Texas in response to the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead. According to Houston public media, schools there are having difficulty hiring officers with the amount of funding the state has allotted to them for this added security measure.

Regan’s bill met with strong opposition from the Democrats on the committee as well as a host of other statewide organizations from the public school and gun control communities. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s spokesman confirmed the governor also opposes the measure.

Critics questioned the effectiveness of such a mandate and concerns about firearms falling into the wrong hands at school, critics brought up the cost associated with employing a trained security officer for every public school.

Regan acknowledged it won’t be cheap. He estimated it could cost as much as $250 million but said schools have been provided $800 million since 2018 for school security measures and are sitting on $3.2 billion in unassigned fund balances.

Sen. Lindsey Williams, D-Allegheny County, said a stakeholder group puts the cost at $1 billion or more and described the legislation as unnecessary and not proven to be effective.

“Schools already have multiple ways to arm school security under the existing law,” Williams said. “There is no evidence that it improves school safety.”

She said unfunded mandates like this could stand in the way of hiring school counselors or buying textbooks. Williams recounted recent testimony of a superintendent in a rural school district who said some grades in his district have to share textbooks because the district can’t afford to buy textbooka for every student.

“We cannot provide the resources for our schools to have enough textbooks for the students but this bill will mandate at least one gun in every school building,” she said.

Sen. John DiSanto, R-Dauphin County, said he is not happy that schools need more protection but “we are… And in my opinion, we’re doing a real disservice to our communities and students if we don’t take a mandated approach to this. … Here we have a real opportunity to do something positive.”

Sen. Anthony Williams, D-Philadelphia, said he needs more information about the legislation and whether officials at Philadelphia School District, which he represents, think this is necessary.

He also asked about funding and whether Regan he had spoken to the Philadelphia superintendent about it. Regan responded he had not but he said he has spoken to school safety experts around the globe who recommended this as the one measure they would do.

Sen. Sen. Carolyn Comitta, D-Chester County, said she does not believe bringing firearms into schools is the answer. She pointed to a number of organizations who oppose the bill but said she knew of none that support it.

Among its opponents are Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which raises some of the same concerns the senators raised including one about how this would take away local control over safety and security personnel from districts as well as increase the burden on taxpayers.

“Without state money to fund these positions or the increased costs that they would necessitate, such as higher insurance premiums, the financial burden of this mandate will land squarely on the shoulders of local taxpayers,” said Mackenzie Christiana, a spokeswoman for the school boards association.

She also pointed out the Pennsylvania School Safety Institute that allows individuals tasked with keeping schools safe an opportunity to train skills necessary to respond to various situations.

Brandon Flood, government affairs director, for CeaseFirePA, a gun violence prevention group, said, “What we have is a textbook example of government overreach that would make an imprudent use of taxpayers dollars on a solution that has been widely proven to be downright harmful or ineffective at best.”