The St. Paul school board is calling for gun control legislation and more money for school safety in response to last month’s shooting in Florida that killed 17 students and staff.
The board, in consultation with student leaders, adopted a resolution Tuesday night advocating for background checks and a higher minimum age to buy guns, as well as money for school building improvements and school mental health staff.
Board members have been moved by teenagers in St. Paul and across the country speaking out in response to the Parkland, Fla., shooting on Feb. 14.
“There have been adults talking about this for a long time with nothing happening,” Jon Schumacher said.
“They really are demanding action. They are demanding to be heard,” said Superintendent Joe Gothard, who joined students demonstrating at Harding High School last week during a nationwide student walkout to mark the one-month anniversary of the Parkland shooting.
Minnesota lawmakers now are taking a look at school safety, but some board members said they’re disappointed that much of the Parkland-inspired discussion has been about fortifying schools.
Board member Steve Marchese said schools “are not fortresses, they are not prisons.” It’s sad, he said, that “we can find funding for metal detectors but we cannot find funding for special-education teachers.”
The St. Paul district has made special education funding a lobbying priority this year. Instead, board chair Zuki Ellis said, lawmakers are interested in allocating more money for school resource officers.
“It’s really frustrating,” she said.
As a cost-saving measure, but also with the encouragement of student leaders, the board this school year reduced the number of police officers in its schools to seven from nine. There’s still an armed officer posted at each comprehensive high school.
Miski Omar, a Central High junior serving on the school board’s student advisory group, said Tuesday evening that school officers “already are a problem, and we don’t need more of them.”
Earlier Tuesday, a Maryland school resource officer shot at a student seconds after the teen shot and critically wounded a classmate. The armed student died, though it wasn’t immediately clear whether he took his own life or was killed by the officer.
The St. Paul board resolution acknowledges a need to plan and “coordinate with law enforcement,” but asks that new funding go toward hiring school counselors, psychologists and social workers, as well as strengthening school buildings.
In a separate report Tuesday, the board reviewed district survey data that show a steady increase in students’ sense of security. About 93 percent of last year’s seniors said they feel safe at school, an all-time high for the district and up about 20 percentage points from the mid-1990s.