House Bill 167 will provide funding to provide school resource officers in all Delaware public schools. This bill will fund at least one school resource officer in each school, public or charter, regardless of the size of the school. This bill will provide additional school resource officers for schools that have over 1,000 students.
Here is hoping that these officers possess more courage than the cowards in Uvalde, Texas or Parkland, Florida.
| HOUSE BILL 167 – REPUBLICAN ANSWER TO SCHOOL SHOOTINGS: SCHOOL RESOURCE OFFICERS | Currrent Status – House Education 5/18/23 |
| House Sponsors – Shupe, Collins, Gray, Ramone, Smith, Yearick // Williams, Bush, Parker Selby | Senate Sponsors – Lawson, Walsh, Buckson, Hocker, Pettyjohn, Wilson |
| House Yes Votes – | Senate Yes Votes – |
| House No Votes – | Senate No Votes – |
| House Absents or Not Voting – | Senate Absent or Not Voting – |
This is insane. We should make sure that every school has an adequate number of counselors and nurses FIRST. Or even the right cohort of teachers — how many teacher position openings do we have statewide? And if our police departments are having a tough time recruiting, where on earth do these resource officers come from? Who pays for ongoing training of these officers?
There’s no data that shows that these officers stop school shootings. Fund resources in these schools that might help an at risk child manage their trauma by means other than a gun.
Let’s also take note that the Parkland SRO goes on trial this week for not protecting the Parkland kids — for running away in the face of an AR. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that the police do not have a duty to protect you — they can decide when to intervene in a crisis. We all want to think of the police as all powerful and an effective deterrent against crime and shootings, but they don’t have to protect you if they decide otherwise. These SROs are unlikely to be in the right place at the right time when the shooting starts, but counselors with ongoing interaction with traumatized kids are far more likely to be in the right place at the right time — before a kid reaches for a gun.