RICHMOND, Va. -- Newport News City Schools are beefing up security after police say a six-year-old intentionally shot a teacher at Richneck Elementary School during the school on January 6.
While there's no timeline for when students will return to the classroom, the next time they do, they'll have to walk through a set of metal detectors which are slated to be installed on January 19. It comes after the district secured funding to place 90 metal detectors across the district.
During a virtual conversation on Wednesday afternoon, Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew said he was unsure if metal detectors are the best step forward.
"I don't know. For me, the jury is still out. I'd like to have more conversations on school districts that use them or don't use them. Looking at data and making sure we're doing a well thought out plan, but I understand, people have a fear, a perception of fear, so how do we address that?" Drew said.
Drew said he supported having officers in schools to build relationships with students and staff.
However, the move toward metal detectors is causing pushback from some parents and researchers who say they believe the new security measures will do no good.
"It will make young people less safe, and we have evidence from young people in surveys that they do feel safe," said David Osher with the American Institutes for Research. "Hardening efforts can cause unintended harms and misdirect scarce resources."
Scarce resources are causing educators across the Commonwealth to push Virginia lawmakers to provide funding for support staff like counselors and social workers so that schools can have a plethora of options when it comes to addressing and preventing violence.
"Some school districts don't have the funding, necessarily, so we have to depend on the state to help those localities get the staffing that they need, primarily mental health services, and things like that. And one of the areas we feel like that could really help from the state level is lifting what we call the 'support cap,'" said Shane Riddle with the Virginia Education Association.
The support cap was placed in 2009, when lawmakers added language to the budget creating a cap on support staff funding from the state level, cutting millions in state funding for support staff at the local level.
"It's been almost a decade that we lifted that cap and the legislature funding partially to the tune of about $270 million, but we need to continue to make progress to lift that support cap fully. By lifting the support cap, we would help to alleviate the challenges that schools face, you know, around school staffing for mental health like social workers, school psychologists that are really needed now more than ever and provide students with the resources necessary for quality education."
According to Fund Our Schools, if Virginia lawmakers funded the group's "Standards of Quality," 23 additional school counselors could be added to the Newport News school district, alongside 25 additional specialized support positions.
If the support cap were to be lifted, 134 additional support staff positions would potentially open.
However, Riddle said there's no one-size-fits-all approach to school safety.
"You allow that school's threat assessment team to evaluate and make decisions on whether it's best for that community to do things, like whether they put metal detectors into the schools and whether they hire more SROs or school safety officers, even K9 units, right? With dogs that come into the school, searching for guns, things like that, but we at the VEA believe that this needs to be done at the local level."
Chief Drew said investigators are interviewing children in the classroom, which is set to wrap up this week.
