NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — It’s been a rough week for the city of Nashville.
“I’ve been a senator for five years and I don’t think I’ve had a tougher week in Nashville,” said State Sen. Shane Reeves (R-Murfreesboro).
After a shooter broke into The Covenant School and took the lives of six people Monday, Reeves is pushing even hard for schools to have school resource officers.
“I think at this day and time everything needs to be on the table, to be honest with you,” he said. “I mean SROs are vital staples it seems to me.”
Before Monday’s deadly shooting, Reeves was already working on a bill that would require every public school in Tennessee to have an SRO.
“The genesis of the bill came from one of my counties, which is Cannon County, that has five public schools there, and they only have the funding for two SROs,” he said.
Each SRO would cost $30,000, but grant money would be allocated with this bill so smaller districts could afford this.
“They could apply for the grant to use in their school system, and in most cases, the county has to match it,” said Reeves.
This bill expresses that the state would provide over $55 million to make that happen. This number is based on how many public schools (1,837) in Tennessee times the $30,000 needed to fund each SRO.
As this bill makes its way through, Reeves believes it’s something schools need now more than ever.
“I really do believe that everything is on the table right now, and we need to do everything we can to be aggressive and proactive to get ahead of this,” he said.
Reeves says he is also open to looking at bills that would help private schools with SROs or other security measures.
This bill will make its way to the Senate Finance Committee in the next week.
