More guns aren’t necessarily the answer to school safety issues, the new state education commissioner says in an interview set to air on public radio this evening.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett says instead that creating a culture where kids and adults in talk openly and trust each other – and where adults communicate about potential problems – is a big part of the solution to school violence.
In an interview that will air on the “It’s About Florida” program this evening on WFSU in Tallahassee and WFSW in Panama City, Bennett said when he was in Indiana, the schools focused on being proactive in identifying potential problems, “as opposed to reactively, which is the discussion about putting more guns in our schools. I have to tell you, I don’t believe that’s the solution,” Bennett said. “I believe the solution is where we develop a school system where every child feels safe, every child has a significant adult they can go to and where we have a seamless line of communications where all of the leaders who affect a child’s education have the ability to share information so we don’t have that situation like we had in Columbine, where every community agency, they were dealing with those kids, and they didn’t talk to each other.”
The interview with WFSU’s Trimmel Gomes airs at 6:30 p.m., Thursday evening on WFSU in Tallahassee and 5:30 p.m., Central, on WFSW in Panama City.
