Executive Director of the Tennessee Firearms Association John Harris and Professional Educators of Tennessee CEO JC Bowman continue their in-studio discussion of school safety on Wednesday’s episode of The Tennessee Star Report with host Michael Patrick Leahy.
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Governor Lee has criticized the Metro Nashville Police Department’s (MNPD) plan to utilize $3.375 million in state grant funding to support its current pool of 60 armed school resource officers (SRO) in the 45 Nashville public middle and high schools while increasing patrol presence around elementary schools.
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The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) announced Monday that the State Board of Education has approved grant funding for 301 statewide schools to finance a school resource officer (SRO) on campus. This shows a significant increase in schools seeking armed security, as 190 campuses utilized the grant for officers during the previous cycle.
Additionally, it is not only more SROs coming to campuses, as Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne also got payments approved for 566 counselors and social workers around the state in over $45 million in grants. In total, the School Safety Program offered nearly $100 million in funding from state and federal monies. The grants will go into effect in the Fall of 2023 and last until the 2025/26 school year.
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Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee plans this week to propose placing armed guards at every school in his state, and he indicated that he is open to some gun reform measures in the wake of the shooting at a private Christian school in Nashville that left six dead.
While it still needs legislative approval, Lee’s plan would expand a proposal to station armed guards at all public schools in Tennessee and give grant funding to allow private schools to also hire armed guards, The Tennessean reported Friday. The state cannot require private schools to hire armed guards, but it can require the guards hired by private schools to have the same level of training as those in public schools.
That means the new plan could apply to Covenant School, a private Presbyterian school where 28-year-old Audrey Elizabeth Hale killed three nine-year-olds and three staffers in their 60s last week.
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A new poll conducted among likely GOP voters in the Nashville suburbs of Brentwood and Franklin by Triton Polling shows that voter concerns about traffic congestion, illegal immigration and rising crime are at the top of the list. Recent school shootings have also resulted in over 90% of the Republican voters in the District supporting placement of School Resource Officers (SROs) in each school across the state in order to increase security in our schools. The survey of 361 likely Republican Primary voters was conducted June 18-22, 2018 and has a margin or error of 5.1%. “School shootings across the country are clearly top of mind among parents in Tennessee,” Tennessee Star Political Editor Steve Gill pointed out. “Currently only about half of Tennessee schools have an armed SRO, and 90.5% of the voters in this district support making sure that every school has that protection.” 65.3% of those polled supported state funding to ensure that level of protection of schools. Governor Bill Haslam included some funding for SROs in his final state budget, and several candidates for Governor, including Beth Harwell and Randy Boyd have expressed support for the Governor’s plan and that they intend to expand upon it.…
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