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Iowa Senator Sarah Trone-Garriott expresses concern about arming school staff with firearms , especially with a lack of proper training.

Trone-Garriott tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the original legislation required Iowa schools over a specific size to have a Student Resource Officer (SRO) or a law enforcement officer in the building. She states that the legislation had the money allocated to fund it, but it was amended, leading to schools no longer being assisted to provide SROs. Trone-Garriott believes that it was a bad decision by the Republican-controlled legislature and voices her apprehension given the minimal training that was offered.

“When you’re asking a staff person not only to carry a weapon around children, but then also to be ready to respond in an emergency situation, a situation where somebody else has a gun, technically a combat situation, that’s a huge expectation for someone. And our law enforcement officers train constantly to be able to be up to task for that, and this was pretty minimal.”

Trone-Garriott mentions that there weren’t any specifications in the bill about the process of storing weapons or psychological and emotional temperament for school employees. She thinks that most school districts won’t comply with arming staff members because they won’t be able to be insured, but points out that others will pay the necessary amount of money to do so. Proponents of the bill say that if a teacher passes the training and school districts move forward, that teacher can be immune from insurance.