The Lafayette Parish School Board may reorganize its central office, replacing positions with lower paying ones, in an effort to pay for an armed officer in every school in the district, The Daily Advertiser reports.
The cuts to staff comes as the parish’s school resource officer program faces a $1.2 million shortfall next school year. The program costs $4 million. The Lafayette school board vote on the proposal Wednesday.
Education officials around the state and country are pursuing options to make schools safer for children after a lone gunman opened fire at a Florida high school last February, killing 17 students and faculty and injuring 17 others.
Here in Louisiana, the St. Tammany Parish School Board voted in May to place an armed officer in every school, and in Livingston and Terrebonne parishes, sheriffs there are considering asking voters to approve a tax that would put officers in their district schools. And, in Baton Rouge, Chief of Police Murphy Paul expressed his desire to place officers in schools two weeks after two women were shot near Istrouma High.
