SFPS considers hiring armed security officers
Superintendent says she doesn’t favor teachers, other staff carrying guns
Santa Fe’s school superintendent on Tuesday said the district will consider hiring armed resource officers for its 30 schools. In floating the idea, Superintendent Veronica García said she prefers the option of trained officers on campuses to suggestions from President Donald Trump and other politicians that school security could be improved by allowing school employees to carry firearms.
“There does not seem to be a compelling reason to arm faculty and staff,” García said. “They’re not trained.”
García held the news conference at Santa Fe High School — the scene of shooting threats in recent months — to address growing concerns about campus violence. Seventeen students and staff members of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., died earlier this month at the hands of a gunman.
The specter of not just the Florida incident but similar shootings — Columbine High School in Colorado, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, and more recently and closer to home, Aztec High School in New Mexico — hung over the event. Even so, any move to station armed officers on campuses in the Santa Fe district would be methodical.
García said the district will wait until after next week’s city election before approaching the new mayor, the Santa Fe Police Department and the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office to discuss hiring armed officers to heighten school security.
If the idea gained traction, it would be considered by the five-member school board. But even if all went according to plan, it is unlikely the district would start deploying armed
officers until the fall term. It is unclear if those armed guards would be police officers, sheriff ’s deputies or trained security guards.
It would not be the first time Santa Fe Public Schools has had armed officers on campuses.
The district initiated a similar measure in the 1990s and tried to revive the idea by hiring two armed resource officers as recently as 2014. City government and the school district were to split the cost.
That last effort failed in large part because city councilors said they were not as informed as they wanted to be about the proposal.
García said district schools have been dealing with a number of threats.
She said students who joke about such sober matters will be treated with the same consequences as anyone making a real threat. They could face suspension, expulsion and criminal charges.
Board member Steven Carrillo, who attended Tuesday’s event, said he would support hiring armed officers on campus. Board President Lorraine Price, who also was present, said she would be open to discussing the idea.
Both said they are against arming teachers.
Santa Fe High School Principal Carl Marano — the subject of a threat by a former student late last year — said he would not feel any safer wearing a gun to school than he does now. Nor, he added, would most of his employees.
Capt. Robert Vasquez of the Santa Fe Police Department said officers are being more proactive in investigating social media sites to identify people who may be a threat to student bodies. Perhaps, he said, the city could find a way to hire retired police officers to serve as campus resource officers.
García proposed a number of other ideas to increase security.
They included diverting some $250,000 to $300,000 to install more fortified automatic-lock doors at all the district’s buildings. The school board approved finding funds for that measure during a board meeting Tuesday night.
She also said the district can do more to help identify students who are dealing with mental health problems or who have been the target of bullying. She said these factors can lead a student to lash out with violence.
In another safety effort — though one not necessarily aimed at curbing the potential for gun violence — the district will soon begin implementing a digital management system for school visitors. It will use a visitor’s identification card, such as a driver’s license, to reveal whether the name matches any on federal sex offender lists.
Carrillo, the father of a Santa Fe High student, said he believes the district is doing everything it can to protect its 13,400 students. Still, he said, he fears the real danger of access to guns is being overlooked in the discussion of student safety.
Santa Fe High School senior William Wiebe said it may be hard to institute increased gun control, given the culture. But, he said, student voices from around the country could change that resistance.
“We’ve had enough,” Wiebe said. “Parkland was just the most recent of a plethora of school shootings, and a lot of students, like me, are pissed.
“This should have stopped at Columbine. Or Sandy Hook. It should have stopped a long time ago. I think it should stop now.”