The American flag is flying at half staff at the North Syracuse Central School District on Tuesday, honoring the latest victims of a uniquely American tragedy.
Teachers across Central New York went to work with the somber knowledge that a shooter used three legally purchased guns to murder three of their peers and three students under the age of 10 inside their own school in Nashville, TN. Body camera footage shows police racing through private Christian Covenant School on Monday, trying to find the shooter, eventually shooting and killing the attacker.
The North Syracuse Education Association President John Kuryla said that preventing loss of life in a school shooting has become part of the job description for teachers. We spoke about this problem after a shooter used legally purchased guns to murder 19 young kids and two teachers in Uvalde last May; he said he'd be shocked if we aren't talking about a fresh school massacre again in the near future.
"We are in mourning," said Kuryla.
He noted that after Uvalde, the district moved to make improvements. In December, voters in North Syracuse approved $32 million going to improving security infrastructure throughout the district, including doors and windows. This came in the form of a capital improvement project, funded by the state.
Kuryla said they also made sure to boost the number of School Resource Officers, with at least one from either the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department or Cicero Police Department present in every building, including elementary schools. This started with CRRSA funding, but have since become fulltime positions that cost the district a total of $662,400 annually, according to this year's budget.
Similar funds have been allocated in Central Square. Superintendent Tom Colabufo said that his district is "as prepared as you can possibly be" after a $12 million capital improvement project that brought active shooter specialists Armoured One in to suggest improvements to school buildings.
Colabufo said the money went toward improved locks, doors and windows; as of this year, they now have six retired armed Syracuse Police Officers, one for each building, with salaries of about $47,000 per year. Two of these people were paid through ARPA funds, but Colabufo said that these expenses will be out of their general fund moving forward.
He and Kuryla agree; the federal government needs to provide additional funding to ensure all schools have a baseline of safety measures that they can hit without needing to rely on local dollars.
Other districts have also added security personnel that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - while the job description of School Resource Officers or Peace Officers is not solely to prevent mass shootings, they are generally there in an effort improve security measures. Questions also persist about how effective SROs are in an active shooter situation, with research showing that even in cases where an SRO was on a school's campus, they were rarely able to engage the shooter before other law enforcement arrived.
The Syracuse City School District approved hiring 20 peace officers and 2 sergeants through August of this year to provide a "safe and orderly environment" for up to $225,000. The district's overall security budget is $7,932,021, a 10.68% increase from the previous school year's budget.
In Baldwinsville, the are 8 SRPOs and SROs, with a $625,000 budget for "safety". The school district's acting superintendent, Dr. Kathleen Davis, said that they are applying for $960,918 in Smart Schools funds for security measures.
Liverpool schools have a total of 16 SRO and four school monitors, according to a district spokesperson; this is an increase of 8 SROs since August of 2022, each paid $45,000 per year as part of their base salary.
West Genesee Superintendent David Bills confirmed that the total cost of their SRO program, employing 7 officers, is $450,000 which includes training as well as salaries. Each of these districts is now working on providing their overall safety budget, and this story will be updated accordingly.
Given the tremendous amount of money that schools need to spend - Kuryla said he is hoping for more federal action when it comes to guns. The common denominator in recent mass shootings is a legally purchased weapon; the guns used at the Buffalo Tops, Uvalde, Michigan State University and Nasvhille were all bought legally and were used to gun down a total of 40 people either shopping for groceries or learning/teaching at school.
President Joe Biden is pleading with Congress to reinstate a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines after the law expired in 2004 under a Republican controlled Congress and White House. It's unlikely to gain any momentum with Republicans back in control of the House of Representatives following the 2022 elections.