Sens. Michael Garrett and Gladys Robinson, both Democrats, filed the bill together. The bill specifies the money would go toward recruiting and retaining school personnel, continuing high school "learning hubs," continuing and expanding career and technology education programs, and expanding school safety, including "the use of security scanners in every school."
Guilford County Schools is currently leasing EVOLV scanners for its middle and high schools. The scanners are typically stationed at school entrances and monitored by district staff during their normal work days. The devices are designed to detect concealed guns and deter them from being brought into the building. They are not traditional metal detectors. Instead, they create images of the person walking through the scanners and then use artificial intelligence to analyze those images for shapes that look like guns or gun parts.
"Part of our legislative agenda includes asking the state for money so that we can continue to fund those and add them in every elementary school as well," Guilford County Schools spokeswoman Gabrielle Brown said in email.
Back in February, the county school board voted to approve its annual list of requests to legislators, otherwise known as the legislative agenda. As part of that agenda, the district included a total of $12.8 million in direct funding requests to legislators, including $2 million for weapons scanners. What's listed in Garrett and Robinson's bill is similar, although not identical, to what Guilford County Schools asked for in the legislative agenda.
Superintendent Whitney Oakley also included just over $1.7 million to continue the lease of weapons scanners in the middle schools and high schools as part of her proposed budget request to county commissioners.
Reached by phone Thursday, Garrett said he and Robinson filed the bill in response to requests made by the district into the state budget. Their desire, he said, was to help the district continue with successful initiatives it has been paying for with soon-to-expire federal pandemic relief dollars.
Some examples include recruitment and retention bonuses for district staff and "learning hubs," which provide opportunities for students to catch up on work and get help from tutors, teachers and other school staff.
Garrett said Guilford County Schools leaders are aware any money appropriated would be one-time funds and have said they would look for other strategies as far as funding these efforts past the next fiscal year. Though he thinks its unlikely they will gain support for the full amount, he's hopeful a big portion of the request could ultimately survive to be folded into the state budget.
"We are grateful to Senator Gladys Robinson and Senator Michael Garrett for their leadership," Brown wrote in a later email, "and we are hopeful the North Carolina General Assembly will support our efforts to continue improving learning and life outcomes for all students."
2024 the News & Record (Greensboro, N.C.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
