Spend $40M in new school safety money wisely

One minute you’re having breakfast with your child before school, and the next you’re waving goodbye as they rush out the door to catch the bus.

For millions of parents, it’s a tough — if fleeting — part of the job. We treasure every moment with our kids, and sometimes it’s hard seeing them run off to school for the day. Some days, you want to hug them before they leave, but they’re already out the door.

As a parent, you take comfort in knowing that, although you aren’t with them at school, they’re safe. That they’ll return home, and you’ll get to catch up with them and hear about their day. That you’ll send them off to bed, and you’ll have breakfast with them in the morning. Hopefully, you’ll get that hug in before they rush out the door once again.

However, far too many families in this country have sent their loved ones to school only to learn that they won’t be coming home. We’ve seen it in Parkland, and we’ve seen it in Aztec — and we just saw it in Santa Fe, Texas. It never gets any less heartbreaking.

When parents send their children to school, there’s an expectation that they’ll be safe. School, after all, is a place that should keep our children away from violence and traumatic experiences, not expose them to it. That’s why after the tragic Parkland school shooting last February, when students and young people began to demand action from lawmakers to make our schools safer, I decided to act.

I introduced legislation that created a $40 million fund designated for one purpose: ensuring that our schools are safe. The money is earmarked for training school staff on how to respond to an armed threat or an attack, hiring additional security personnel, and the installation of security hardware like metal detectors and cameras.

I’m proud to say that, through hard work and coalition building, my bill was passed and is now law in New Mexico. Now we have to spend that money to make schools safer.

With most public schools starting to break for summer at the end of May, that only leaves June and July to decide how to spend these funds before students return in August.

That’s why I am calling on Gov. Susana Martinez to call for a special session to address school security and make our schools safer. While lawmakers in Washington. D.C., sit on their hands, New Mexico has taken the first step to fund increased school safety.

Now we need to hear from students, parents, teachers, school administrators and school board members on what they need to make schools safer. Most importantly, everything should be on the table; from treating school shootings as a public health issue to expanding background checks on the sale of firearms to funding more training to facilitate coordination between public schools and first responders.

As the father of two sons and the husband of a school principal, nothing is more important than family, and the safety of all our children is my top priority. Parents should send their precious children to school with the full confidence in our ability to keep them safe, and I pledge to fight every day to restore their faith in New Mexico’s ability to do just that.