An effort to order public and charter schools to train teachers, staff, and administrators what to do if there’s an active shooter or an intruder in the school has been watered down to a suggestion in the state senate.
Rolla Senator Dan Brown, who had wanted to mandate that training, and to mandate that first-graders see a special video urging them to stay away from guns and report to an adult if they see one, had to take what he could get. He introduced his bill a day before the Connecticut school shootings. “There are a lot of things that can be learned…and stop this insane madness before it gets too far,” he tells the Senate.
But a couple of St. Louis Senators blocked a vote until Brown changed wording saying school districts “shall” have the training and the children’s video…to districts “may” have those things. Senator Jamilla Nasheed says it’s better to focus that time on better teaching. They also argued that the state, not the districts, would have to pay for those training sessions. “If we are able to educate our children, we won’t have to worry about those children picking up guns,” she said.
Brown hopes passage of his bill will encourage more districts to do what he hoped to order them to do….but now is only suggesting they do.