An already difficult school year ended on a deeply somber note last week as news of the Uvalde school shooting devastated the nation. On May 24, 19 children and two teachers were killed when 18-year-old gunman Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School in the small Texas town. Metro Nashville Public Schools board members were meeting as the news broke, and Director of Schools Adrienne Battle responded.
“Children have the right to learn and thrive in a safe environment, free from violence or tragedy, and far too often society fails in protecting that right,” Battle said at the school board meeting.
Battle also sent a letter to parents later that evening, noting, “For two years we have been living through a pandemic caused by COVID-19, but this is a stark reminder that too many of us have lived with an epidemic of gun violence for all our lives.” Battle herself experienced a school shooting in 1994 while enrolled at J.T. Moore Middle School. A fellow student brought a gun to school; it went off while being handled by a classmate, killing 13-year-old Terrance Murray.
Around 16 guns have been recovered in Metro schools this year, though none were fired on school premises. Less than a week before the Uvalde shooting, an 18-year-old was killed and a 17-year-old injured during a shooting at Riverdale High School’s graduation ceremony in Murfreesboro. The shooter, also 17, is in police custody and facing a first-degree murder charge. Just two days after the Ulvalde shooting, a 16-year-old MNPS student was found with a loaded gun at Stratford STEM Magnet School. According to the Metro Nashville Police Department, “The teen said he was carrying the pistol for protection.”
Following the Uvalde shooting, MNPS provided mental health resources and consulted with its security department and MNPD. Though no immediate changes were made to the district’s protocols, district spokesperson Sean Braisted says, “We’ll continue to discuss and determine whether new steps need to be taken to align with best practices for protecting against these situations.” Braisted also notes that district schools have doors that lock from the inside, single entry points, cameras and safety drills.
MNPD Chief John Drake deployed officers to elementary schools following the Uvalde shooting. Typically, middle and high schools have school resource officers, but not elementary schools. SROs are security officers who work for the MNPD rather than the school district — typically, they are armed. MNPS also has its own security department, but members of that department aren’t stationed at specific schools — they work across the district and respond when needed. Some schools also budget for their own security personnel.
SROs in schools is a controversial topic. Research has shown that they negatively and disproportionately impact students of color. District 4 school board representative John Little, who has spoken about gun violence before, tells the Scene that he supported having a heightened security presence following the Uvalde shooting. But, Little says: “We have to have a conversation with the community, with parents, with teachers [and] with stakeholders. Because the school-to-prison pipeline is real, and I’ve been an opponent of having SROs in our elementary schools. And so we have to think about, ‘Well, if there’s not SROs, and parents want safety, what alternative does that look like?’ I don’t think it has to be police officers.”
As reported by the Associated Press, officers were at the scene of the Uvalde shooting for more than an hour before Ramos was killed by Border Patrol tactical officers. This deadly event — along with studies and additional information about other school shootings — shows that law enforcement isn’t always effective in quickly shutting situations like these down. In a letter sent to parents on May 26, Battle notes, “We want to be safe and secure, but we also want to ensure that we are making sound decisions based on evidence-based research that truly make us safer while also making sure we don’t disrupt or detract from the learning environment.”
Conservative lawmakers have discussed the need to “harden” schools with tactics like ramping up security and arming teachers. Research, however, suggests that arming school staff is more likely to expose students to gun violence than deter it.
“Arming teachers is not the answer; more guns in schools is not the answer,” reads a statement from the Metropolitan Nashville Education Association, Nashville’s teachers’ union. “What we need is to address the policies that make it so easy to acquire guns. We need action from state and federal legislators, and we need it now.”
Last year, the Tennessee General Assembly passed legislation allowing people 21 and older to carry a handgun without a permit — despite disapproval from law enforcement across the state. This year, a bill seeking to lower the minimum gun-carrying age from 21 to 18 passed the House but not the Senate. Gov. Bill Lee — who tweeted last week that he and his wife were “heartbroken by the horrific tragedy” in Texas — prioritized last year’s gun-related legislation.
Following the Uvalde shooting, state Rep. John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) called on Gov. Lee to freeze open-carry laws and call a special session to repeal gun legislation and advance mental-health-care-related laws.
“This is something that has just rocked our nation, but it continues to happen again and again,” says school board representative Little. “Politicians are gonna be politicians. I just wish we can have a common sense approach.”
