Updated with news of Montpelier, Ohio providing armed school staff as well. Update below the original post.
In Clarksville-Montgomery County, Tennessee, officials announced on Friday that all Elementary Schools in their area will be protected by armed off-duty officers beginning this month.
The system has worked out arrangements with Clarksville Police and the Montgomery County Sheriff's office to place the officers at the elementary schools for the spring semester, using $140,000 from energy and fuel savings, as well as funding allocated for textbooks that was unspent due to lower-than-projected student enrollment this year.They will be implementing other security measures as well.
"I am so proud and thankful to be a part of a community that takes pride in schools and wants to make sure schools are safe for their children," said Director of Schools Dr. B.J. Worthington.
School resource officers from the sheriff's department are already provided in middle and high schools.
Officials praised the teamwork of city and county agencies for the quick action.
"There is nothing more important to all of us, and all of Clarksville and Montgomery county than keeping our children safe," said Clarksville Mayor Kim McMillian.
Other districts, such as Rutherford, Wilson and Sumner Counties, have already announced they would like more School Resource Officers to be stationed at their schools.
There are those within the federal government that claim they want to protect school children across the nation by enacting more gun laws which many feel would violate the Second Amendment, then there are those like these Tennessee counties that are taking unilateral action on a state level to protect the children now.
As the debate over gun control and Second Amendment rights rages across the country, it is noteworthy to mention that the latest two school shootings, one at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, which resulted in 20 children and six adults being slaughtered and one in California at Taft High School, which resulted in two injuries and the suspect in custody, both happened in publicly advertized "gun free" zones and both states, CA and CT, have some of the strictest gun laws in the nation already on the books.
Those laws did not stop the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary nor the injuries in California.
[Update] Montpelier, Ohio- The Montpelier Exempted Village Schools Board of Education has approved the carrying of handguns by its custodial staff.
The 5-0 vote of the board Wednesday night to allow handgun training for four custodians to be able to tote weapons at the K-12 campus at the Williams County school came after last month's deadly shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
School officials say that having armed personnel - believed to be the first for any school system in Ohio - is designed to thwart incidents of violence and prevent what happened in Newtown, Conn., from occurring here.
"Sitting back and doing nothing and hoping it doesn't happen to you is just not good policy anymore. There is a need for schools to beef up their security measures," Supertendent Jamie Grime told The Blade today. "Having guns in the hands of the right people are not a hindrance. They are a means to protect."
Related:
Guns and Freedom by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano