Image Credit: John Cooper / Facebook & 6Q Creative (courtesy of Holly Abernathy) –
The Tennessee Conservative [By Kelly M. Jackson] –
This past week in a shift from prior statements, Mayor John Cooper and MNPD Police Chief John Drake stated that there will be an armed SRO in every elementary school- eventually.
Last month, the issue was raised when MNPD left over 5 million dollars of resources on the table that had been earmarked for beefing up school security in the wake of the shooting at Covenant Elementary in Nashville.
In June, reports indicated that even though Metro Council and Nashville parents were “begging” for school SRO’s to become a regular presence in elementary schools in MNPS, the pushback conveyed reluctance on the part of the district as well as that of MNPD and Mayor Cooper.
Adrienne Battle, MNPS director, said that she is hesitant to place armed police at the elementary level, in the same way MNPD has had a presence at every middle and high school in the district. She said her reason was that, “when there is a presence do we see a spike in arrests or incidents with students… there’s also concerns about armed officers being in the same space as our students..”
Dr. Battle’s remarks indicate a reference to a study which was mentioned in a previous article from The Center For Public Integrity, which discusses the correlation between a police presence and an increase in incidents with black students, and students with disabilities. Often, those two groups will also overlap, so while there is a spike in both , in some cases the same students are being encountered.
This tends to a be a chicken or the egg type of argument, because the reason for the spike could be because there is finally a mechanism of accountability present to capture and record the behavior in a way there never was before, since elementary schools in MNPS have never had any kind of police presence in their history at the elementary level. The spike in activity doesn’t necessarily indicate a bias in policing, however that is certainly the chosen correlation of the study, as well as Dr. Battle.
The second concern mentioned by Dr. Battle in having an armed officer, in a uniform in the same physical space as young students is off-putting, even though parents and many Metro council members have the opposite opinion. Based on information being collected by Metro Council, they alongside Nashville parents, are making that demand in ever greater numbers.
The other obstacle, that of the issue with the funding, seems to be due to the fact that MNPS does not want to have a permanent police presence in the elementary schools, so Mayor Cooper and Chief Drake are left to handle it the way they always had, which was to assign officers hours of overtime to patrol the elementary schools and monitor their security. The funding that Governor Lee included in his budget cannot be allocated for anything short of a recruited, trained and permanently stationed officer, and cannot be used to reimburse the department for overtime.
There has been a mention of asking to have amendments included in the legislation during the upcoming special session, that will allow for the department to apply for the funds so they can use them to cover expenses they had already budgeted for to begin with.
In one month’s time, there has been a movement in the direction of eventually having a permanent police presence in MNPS elementary schools for the first time in their history, indicating that parents are making their opinions known and the city and the district are possibly paying attention.
We will continue to cover this story as it develops.
About the Author: Kelly Jackson is a recent escapee from corporate America, and a California refugee to Tennessee. Christ follower, Wife and Mom of three amazing teenagers. She has a BA in Comm from Point Loma Nazarene University, and has a background in law enforcement and human resources. Since the summer of 2020, she has spent any and all free time in the trenches with local grassroots orgs, including Mom’s for Liberty Williamson County and Tennessee Stands as a core member. Outspoken advocate for parents rights, medical freedom, and individual liberty. Kelly can be reached at kelly@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
One Response
It is much cheaper and more effective to let teachers have guns.