‘Teachers Are Educators, Not Security Guards’: Educators Respond to Trump Proposal
And there were concerns about what that would do to the relationship between teacher and student.”
Mr. Shutt said he was deeply opposed to Mr. Trump’s proposal — in particular the idea
that federal funds should be used to train teachers in how to use a gun, when educators, Mr. Shutt said, had so many other needs.
So on Thursday, when President Trump proposed arming teachers to curb violence, Mr. Shutt posed a question
to his students: What do you think of the idea of training teachers to have guns in schools?
“To be effective, schools must be perceived as safe havens.”
Tom Kuroski, president of the Newtown Federation of Teachers and a teacher of 33 years, said
that he could not conceive how such a measure would have prevented the Sandy Hook massacre.
“The mere thought that teachers should be armed in order to ward off violence is utterly illogical
and will only result in making our students and teachers less safe,” said Tommy Chang, the superintendent of Boston Public Schools, in a statement.
Why would a teacher ever have a gun in school?’” Mr. Shutt recalled.
Even in gun-friendly locales like rural Indiana, teachers reacted with alarm to Mr. Trump’s plan,
which came a little more than a week after a gunman killed 17 at a high school in Florida.