We just recently passed the year mark of the Parkland School shooting. School shootings are something that scares every parent. We have seen legislation vary in every state to take on the issue. Many like to paint this as a gun control issue. School security should be a stand alone issue. When it comes to securing our school we don’t have time to debate, we need action.
Our education system falls under the State's responsibility. The State is not only responsible for the education of our children, but they are responsible for their safety at school as well. Albany needs to do more to help our local schools.
We need Albany to provide funding for the following:
Find out what's happening in Wantagh-Seafordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
•More training to recognize mental health issues, warning signs and early intervention for school staff. Offer this training to parents and PTA’s as well.
•Funding to secure and harden school vestibules so entrances are not easy access points. You should not be able to physically enter a school before being verified.
Find out what's happening in Wantagh-Seafordfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
•Funding to give schools the option to have a Nassau County police officer on school campus during the school day.
•Provide State training and guidelines to allow school districts the option to hire armed retired law enforcement as school resource officers.
•Raise the income cap for retired police officers who are employed as school resource officers.
Some funding is available for some of these items but not enough. For other items there are none.
We need a comprehensive approach! Intervention, mental health, annoynomous reporting systems and the option to have active or retired trained, vetted armed school resource officers on school campuses.
If we don't do all of the above we are not doing our do dilligence. Albany is the government authority that oversees education. They have a responsibility to keep our kids safe in school too. Albany has failed in doing so. More needs to be done! Albany needs to stop talking and take more action.
This is my personal opinion and not the opinion of any civic association board I belong to.
