Hard To Teach Dead Kids, Paulding Mom Tells School Board: WATCH

PAULDING COUNTY, GA — In light of the Broward County School shooting which left killed 17 children and teachers, and wounded many more, a Paulding County mother spoke to the Board of Education Tuesday about protecting Paulding children from a similar fate.

Heather Porter Tatum told the school board she sees weaknesses in the safety system of schools and she offered many suggestions.

"I think we can all agree the children in our community, their safety should be our number one priority. We need to teach them," she said. "We need to enrich them with the arts and athletics but safety should be number one. Today, our kids are scared. They are scared at school because of the recent events. They don't feel safe. I think that's an issue that you all need to be aware of and take action on. We're able to secure our courthouses. Our judges are safe. Our government buildings are safe. We should be able to secure our children in the same way when they attend a public information facility.

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"I know in the past board members have said that you all are not privy to give us details of the safety routines, strengths and weaknesses, but I can see your weaknesses," continued Porter Tatum. "And if I can see them, so can any perpetrator. There's some things I've noticed. We have gates at some schools; they're not being operated. Anyone can walk in the front door at one of the three my children's schools, whenever they choose, and enact violence upon them. The doors and exteriors are glass and a bullet can break them. That has happened. That's what happened at Sandy Hook. The shooter shot the front door and killed 22 children.

At that point Porter Tatum began asking questions and offering suggestions.

"We should be looking at locking all exterior doors, using our gates," she said. "How much is bullet-proof glass? Have we looked into that? Have we opened it up for bid? Banks have panic buttons in their office, their front windows to alert to an issue. Have we looked at putting that in our schools? Our teachers receive a booklet, as I'm told at my schools, to prepare for active shooters, but they don't receive actual hands-on training from our sheriff's office. That could be very beneficial in case an event happens.

"Moving on to our resource officers, right now, we have five in our high schools," she continued. "We should have nine in our middle schools but we're short three. I'd like to know why were short those three officers. They're rotating around the middle schools. I'd like to know how long we've been short those three officers. Our elementary schools are not covered at all. There's no full-time or part-time officers at any of our 19 elementary schools. I spoke with the sheriff's office, they make around $40,000 a year. You can do the math and see what needs to be in our budget for an armed resource officer at every school in our county. That could mean the difference between our children living and our children dying. Also I'd like to note, that I noticed the same person, Don Breedlove, is in charge of safety, athletics, and he's our liaison with Aramark. Seems to be a little random and spread thin. I think maybe safety needs someone dedicated actual safety alone. I think that we should be aggressively protecting our children on a daily basis.

Porter Tatum then offered suggestions on how to pay for the increased security.

"I know funding is a big deal," she said. "I also know that there are federal grants that could help us offset some of the cost.We can also cut some programs that are on our budget, just a little. We have a lot of money in our budget for athletics, media. We have the magnet program, purchasing brand new school buses. All of those things are good but it's really hard to teach dead children, so we need to be looking at that. We should also increase our discipline code. I noticed that the conduct code hasn't been updated since 2013. It mentions specifically, what we will do for a bomb threat, false fire alarm and a false 911 call. It does not specify what we will do if you make false threats of a school shooting or mass violence at our schools. I think that that should be updated."

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