Parents are more worried about their childrens safety at school than at anytime in the past 20 years, according to a new national poll released recently. But a majority still oppose putting armed teachers in classrooms.
Fewer than a third of parents said they were very confident their childrens schools could deter a shooting, the Phi Delta Kappa Poll found, and 34 percent said they feared for their kids safety on campus. In 2013, only 12 percent had reported feeling afraid for their kids.
A strong majority of parents said that they support spending money on school police officers, student mental-health services and campus metal detectors, favoring these additions over armed teachers.
Pollsters found the results from the 2018 school safety questions so powerful they decided to release the data, before the full results from the 50th annual PDK Poll are to be published next month. The annual poll aims to judge the publics view of public schools.
The poll, financed by the PDK Educational Foundation, was conducted in May and asked about 1,000 adults, including 515 parents, 36 questions about school safety. It was taken three months after the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shootings, which killed 17 students and teachers.
The poll found only 26 percent of parents favor arming school staff. Thirty-six percent felt the armed staff would actually put students at risk. The majority, 63 percent, opposed arming teachers, but there was strong support, 80 percent, for school police officers.
In Broward, the school district plans to hire armed guardians, or security guards to protect schools that dont have a police officer. The school district requires applicants to be at least 21 and have a minimum of two years of military or sworn law enforcement experience to hold the newly created job, which pays $25,000 to $33,000 a year. So far, the district is finding few qualified applicants.
The Palm Beach County School District decided against hiring these guards and is working to add 108 officers to its 152-officer force. Miami-Dade school police is also planning to hire 100 new officers for the school year that starts next month.
South Floridas schools will see numerous new obstacles to schools entries next month as a way to thwart a potential attacker. Many are getting single entry points so the front office can easily communicate with anyone who wants to enter. Others are getting new door locks, fences and security cameras.
The polls authors called it disturbing that one in three parents feared for their childrens safety on campus and expressed such a fundamental concern about schools. They said parents with lower incomes, those who lived in urban areas and those who were not white were the most fearful.
Fears about school safety were worse in 1998, they noted, when two school shootings one in Arkansas and one in Oregon prompted widespread media coverage. But by 2013, only 12 percent of parents reported being fearful, so this years 34 percent represents a dramatic increase from five years ago.
