Officials with Gainesville City Schools may put rifles in some of their schools to help defend against armed intruders.
The rifles, which would be kept under lock and key, would be in addition to the semi-automatic pistols carried by officers stationed at three of the district’s eight schools, Superintendent Merrianne Dyer said Wednesday.
The Gainesville school board has asked Dyer to come to the board with a recommendation in October.
District officials talked about doing this after the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December, but took no action. They decided to revisit the issue after an incident last month in DeKalb County, Dyer said.
A man with a gun and nearly 500 bullets entered Ronald E. McNair Discovery Learning Academy in DeKalb, but surrendered without harming students or staff.
The Gainesville school district went through training in the spring and summer on dealing with someone shooting in a school, and officials concluded that, given the length of some school hallways, a pistol might not be an effective tool for stopping a gunman, the superintendent said.
“I know nothing about guns,” Dyer said. “But in this, I have learned that the rifle has much more pinpoint accuracy and would have the range to address an active shooter.”
The city school system contracts with Gainesville police to ensure Gainesville High School, Gainesville Middle School and Wood’s Mill Academy each have a school resource officer. Police also patrol the system’s other five schools and have rifles in secure cases in their patrol cars, Dyer said.
The additional rifles, and safes in which to store them, would cost about $6,000, Dyer said, adding that the city of Gainesville and the school system would share the costs.
Dyer said she will consult with the governance councils at the three schools that would receive the proposed rifles.
She said she polled the schools’ leaders when the proposal first came up. One school’s council was in favor of the idea, a second had no opposition, and the high school group wanted more information.
Dyer said Wednesday afternoon that she had not gotten any calls from parents on the proposal.
“But calls would go to the principals,” she said.
Dyer said the middle school principal said he’d gotten some feedback.
“It was not so much a concern as there are questions,” she said. “The general feeling is this is part of our continued focus on being better prepared and safe.”
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