South Florida teachers union heads reject calls to arm educators

Miami Springs, Florida – Arming teachers has once again been proposed as a solution to stopping mass murder in American classrooms in the wake of yet another school shooting.

Ryan Petty, whose daughter, Alaina, was killed in the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, tweeted a photo of a sign at a Texas campus warning that its teachers are armed, saying it “should be the attitude at every school in the nation.”

“We think it’s a terrible idea,” United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernandez-Mats said.

“They’re not trained in combat, in tactical,” Broward Teachers Union President Ana Fusco said.

Florida has done a lot to try and harden schools, like implementing single points of entry and bringing in more school resource officers after the attack at MSD four years ago.

According to both union presidents, putting more guns in classrooms won’t end school shootings.

“We’re teachers, we’re counselors, we’re nurses, we’re talking about mental health, we’re doing so many things and to add this additional pressure of having to protect and act as law enforcement I think it’s just not the solution,” Hernandez-Mats said.

“You want to ban our books? You want to ban us saying ‘gay?’ You want to ban us on having conversations about history? But you don’t want to put your damn money where your mouth is and ban the gun,” Fusco said. “That’s what needs to happen.”

The union presidents say it’s well past time for legislators to act to do something they believe will force actual change.