WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — They are the images we won't forget: kids walking out of school with their hands up, law enforcement breaking into buildings with their guns drawn, vigils remembering the lives lost. Since Columbine there have been eleven mass school shootings, involving four or more victims. Now there's a new legislative push in North Carolina that hopes to increase school security by arming teachers in the classroom.
Val Young would do almost anything to keep her Kindergarten class safe but even as a gun owner, she says Senate Bill 192, or the School Security Act of 2019, misses the mark.
"To take it to a level that I have to have something that’s very violent around my children it’s not something I’m going to do," Young said.
Middle school teacher, Dakisha Payne Williams, and high school teacher, Stephanie Wallace agree. They say they would lay down their lives for their students but carrying a weapon is not what they signed up for.
"The bottom line for me is I didn’t go to school to be a law enforcement person – I went to school to become a teacher, to teach, that’s my job," Wallace said.
The School Security Act would create a new job in public schools, a Teacher Resource Officer. It would train and pay an educator to carry a firearm on campus in the hope of stopping another disaster.
"In some instances the only way to stop a person with a gun is with a person with a gun," Senate leader, Phil Berger, said.
Berger believes there are ways to make schools safer and this could be one of them.
Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough of Forsyth County says the best way to prevent school shootings is by making schools more difficult targets. The Fosyth County Sheriff's Office provides school resource officers for eight schools - armed deputies who are there in case of an emergency. Sherriff Kimbrough doesn’t deny that armed deputies make schools safer but he doesn’t think arming teachers would.
"That’s too many hats that you’re asking a teacher to wear," he said. "And you’re going down a very dangerous road."
On average – it takes deputies three and half minutes to get to a school in Forsyth County. Minutes that people, who support arming teachers, say are valuable.
Wallace worries that carrying a gun on campus will put her at risk.
"Am I putting on some kind of identifying information so that when law enforcement gets there they don’t see me?" she asked.
Wallace has a permit to carry a concealed weapon but says she can’t imagine taking her gun to school.
"I know when I’m carrying my conceal and carry it completely changes my focus," she said. "I can’t imagine being able to pour myself into my classroom and into my content when – I think it would actually make me less focused because I’m going to be so worried about something happening."
Williams added, "They’re asking me to leave my 20 to go apprehend that one – so what am I going to do with my 20 or my 30 or however large my class is. What are you really asking me to do?"
If you ask on Facebook, you'll find people who like the idea of teachers packing heat.
Melissa said "I'd so much rather know my kids are in a classroom that is protected by someone who has the proper protection and training." And Dewey said, "The best choice is armed teachers on the scene."
School safety is a delicate balance – one educators, lawmakers and law enforcement are aiming to find.