We live in an era that is bordering on insanity, given that public school systems are having to clear the decks to ensure that the children and educators in their charge are safe from gun-packing madmen.
I am privileged to cover a public school system in North Texas that, to my way of thinking, is approaching this matter rationally and with all due diligence.
Farmersville Independent School District employs a full-time police force to keep its four campuses safe. They have a chief of police, Steve Wade, who is a seasoned, state-certified police officer. The men and women under his command are certified as well.
The school district recently went hunting for what they called “hall monitors” who would help lend extra sets of eyes and ears on student activity at the high school, the intermediate school, the junior high and the elementary school. The police department fell short of the applicants it needed to hire the monitors.
So, what did the district’s top cop do? He hired two more certified officers to join his force, which now will comprise five officers plus the chief. The officers are good ones, too. One of them is moving from the Farmersville Police Department to the school district force. She was named officer of the year for Farmersville PD in 2021. The other officer is retired from Garland PD, where he served — and this really is an attention-getter — as commander of the department’s Special Weapons and Tactics unit. Yep, Farmersville ISD’s department has a SWAT commander in its midst.
The school district has made a commitment to protect its students, faculty and staff with sworn law enforcement professionals and have decided that it will not arm its teachers. Superintendent Micheal French made that point abundantly clear to me, that Farmersville will not put guns in the hands of teachers.
In case of trouble the district is going to entrust the professionals it has on its payroll to protect and defend the precious children and the educators who teach them.
This is the world in which we are living. I applaud the school district for keeping its wits about it as it seeks rational solutions to quell this epidemic of violence.