- April 25, 2024
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The Flagler NAACP has collected about 250 signatures of residents opposing Tasers in Flagler County schools.
After several workshops and meetings, the Flagler County School Board ruled Oct. 4 to allow school resource deputies to carry stun guns on district campuses. But for some local groups, including the Flagler NAACP, the debate isn’t over.
“Students don’t shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door,” Jerusha Logan, Flagler County NAACP education chairwoman wrote in an intro to a petition created at the end of October. “Parents cannot Tase their children with impunity. Take the police out of the schools and hire trained, unarmed security guards in their place.”
Logan presented the petition, with about 225 combined physical and virtual signatures, to the School Board at an October meeting. Online alone, 172 signatures have so far been collected.
“Certainly we consider that,” said Superintendent Janet Valentine, of the opposition. It is part of the reason she and staff have been working with the sheriff, to ensure best practices are always employed and deputies are always well informed while on school duty.
She has also been preparing a summary to send out to those who have contacted her about the issue, she said, explaining what work has been done with the Sheriff’s Office to ensure that all possible precautions are being taken.
School resource deputies have already taken Taser-training classes, Valentine added, as well as been trained by the Exceptional Student Education department, which will help them in identifying autistic students and others with disabilities from the rest of the student population.
Logan also questioned why the School Board would schedule, for Nov. 15, a public hearing on whether to instate a uniforms policy, when they didn’t do the same for Tasers.
“You’re talking about 1,500 volts (of electricity),” she said.
Unlike the uniform issue, Valentine said, school safety is a responsibility, not an option. She said: “We would not want to put a uniform policy into place if the parents didn’t want it.”
Valentine added: “That’s our work with the Sheriff’s department to keep kids safe. That’s our job.”
Regardless, Logan will continue collecting signatures.
“The petition will stay online, and signatures will be collected offline until we have a critical mass, which we hope will encourage the board to reconsider (its) decision,” she said. “Or at least let the Flagler citizens give their opinions on this issue.”
THE PETITION
Supporters of the Flagler NAACP’s anti-Taser movement can sign the organization’s petition, at www.SignOn.org/sign/Take-Tasers-Out-Of-Flagler.
