Arming Reading Teachers No Remedy For Violence

Eric Goldstein, President of the Reading Teachers Association and a teacher at the Parker Middle School was asked about the discussion to arm teachers following the tragic shooting at a Florida high school. Following is his response:

The Parkland, Florida, school shooting has left students, families and teachers everywhere feeling angry, sad and fearful. Deadly school shootings are an unfortunate reality we all live with today.

However, arming teachers with guns is not a remedy to this violence. Teachers want to teach, not carry guns for shootouts.

In Reading, we are in such a difficult financial situation that the town will be laying off 10 teachers if the override fails. There is no way that the budget can take on arming and training teachers to combat potential violence.

Instead, what the Reading schools could really use is more funding for school psychologists to sufficiently address the social and emotional needs of students. We need more guidance counselors and social workers so that all students have adequate access to trained adults when they need support.

Instead of increasing class sizes, as our current budget will do, we need to decrease class sizes so teachers can build deeper relationships with students and their families.

Teachers are absolutely in favor of more resources from the federal government, but we wouldn’t use the money to buy guns. We would use the money to directly support students.

Reading already has people who are trained with guns to combat violence -- the police. The town’s budget isn’t able to secure enough police officers for the town’s needs, either. Additional funding would be better served to hire more police officers to work with students and not on guns for teachers.