The Missouri legislature last week overrode two vetoes by Gov. Jay Nixon of bills related to school safety. The first bill will allow districts to designate teachers or administrators as “school protection officers” authorized to carry concealed firearms in schools.
School boards can meet in closed session to designate employees as school-protection officers. It’s an approach similar to Texas’ school marshals program, which was a part of a series of guns-in-schools bills passed by states following the 2012 shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
The Missouri bill also gives school- protection officers the power to detain and arrest suspects.
The second bill will bar schools from using “radio-frequency identification technology” to monitor or track the location of students.
Gov. Nixon, a Democrat, had said that local officials are in the best position to make decisions on such devices. He said they could be used as a public safety tool to locate students during emergency situations or natural disasters.
