More Texas teachers, administrators and others outside of law enforcement will be carrying guns because a new state law requires armed personnel on every public campus starting Sept. 1. The change represents legislators’ most significant response to the Uvalde massacre, where 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary.

A nationwide police shortage and lack of significant new funding has schools across Texas struggling to hire additional staff to protect campuses that don’t already have school resource officers, namely elementaries.

JPRC Director Anthony Petrosino noted that almost no research exists about the impact of armed educators or private security companies on campuses.

From the original Columbian coverage:

“The Seattle Times recently noted in an editorial that some parents and community leaders are calling for metal detectors to be used at schools. But the Times quotes a study from the WestEd Justice & Prevention Research Center: “While metal detectors may provide a visible response to concerns about school safety, there is little evidence to support their effectiveness at preventing school shootings or successfully detecting weapons at schools.””

From the original FutureEd coverage:

“A 2019 report from WestEd’s Justice and Prevention Research Center summarized the breadth of evidence on restorative practices and found that some schools adopt a universal approach that involves training all staff members and students, while others add the practices on to existing discipline systems.

Studies in cities including Los Angeles and Denver found that restorative practices resulted in lower suspensions rates for all students and narrowed gaps in suspension rates between students of color and White students. In the only study that assigned schools randomly at the time of WestEd’s publication, the RAND Corporation found an initiative in Pittsburgh public schools that used a restorative approach when students committed misconduct decreased overall school-level suspension rates and discipline disparities along racial lines, while boosting PSAT scores for 10th grade students and teachers’ assessments of school climate. The intervention didn’t go so far as to improve scores on state tests, and in the middle grades, scores actually dropped at the schools using the new approach.”

From the WTVR original coverage:

“Research from WestEd Justice and Prevention’s Research Center suggests there is little evidence to support the effectiveness of metal detectors in preventing school shootings or detecting weapons at schools.

In Richmond Public Schools, where metal detectors have been implemented at the high school level, a spokesperson told CBS6 that the district has found weapons thanks to both our metal detectors and tips from students, staff, and parents.”