In response to a recent school shooting incident and student appeals, Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) has made the decision to station unarmed security guards across all of its elementary campuses. The resolution, made known during last Thursday's school board meeting, comes on the heels of a disturbing event where a Meadowcreek Elementary student fired a gun into a toilet, fueling the urgency of the subject.
The addition of unarmed guards aims to bolster the sense of safety among elementary students, following demands from concerned parents and students. "That boy at Meadowcreek could have killed somebody last week, or maybe even killed himself," a parent expressed to the board, indicating the gravity of potential danger during the aforementioned incident, as reported by Atlanta News First. This plea for increased safety measures echoes these sentiments, after which the board agreed to instate the unarmed guards.
These new security officers will engage in non-enforcement roles, according to a statement obtained by FOX 5 Atlanta. Their duties are set to include managing car drop-off and pick-up routines, as well as monitoring the perimeters of the elementary school buildings with the aim to ensure a safe learning environment for the community.
The initiative is seen as an interim solution until the district is in a position to allocate more school resource officers to each elementary school, as Chief of GCPS Police Tony Lockard called it a "gap-filling measure." Lockard mentioned during the school board meeting that the guards are not meant to be involved in criminal or disciplinary issues, their focus being solely on the physical safety aspect of school operations, Atlanta News First reported. Parents in the last meeting stressed this planned measure, concerned that elementary students had not received the same attention to security as those in higher grades.
