School coalition aims to make students safer, encourages action from lawmakers

COLUMBIA, SC (WOLO) — A coalition dedicated to making schools safer for children, teachers, and staff met at the State House to encourage action from lawmakers.

According to Patrick Kelly with The South Carolina Coalition for Safer Schools, the organization includes over 30,000 educators, lawmakers, and mental health professionals across the state.

Kelly is also the Director of Government Affairs for The Palmetto State Teachers Association, and a teacher at Blythewood High School.

“Just since August, we’ve seen weekly reports of firearms on school campuses. A trend that builds on the more than doubling of the number of firearms reported on school campuses in the “2022 School Report Card” data that was released in the Fall by the Oversight Education Committee,” says Kelly.

The coalition plans to introduce bills that will establish a training center for school safety, promote more access to public work services, and increase the number of available school psychologists.

Lynn Collins with the South Carolina Association of School Psychologists says it’s recommended that there is one psychologist for every 500 students. In South Carolina, Collins says we have one psychologist for every 1,500 students.

“Our students are not ok and our staff is not ok. If we talk about every person who is in a building, at least 25% of the people in your building — be it student or a staff member — has a mental health issue. Most of those are undiagnosed, and the majority of those are not receiving treatment,” says Collins.

Representative Jermaine Johnson is part of the coalition and is introducing a bill to tackle more responsible gun ownership.

“We don’t want to take your guns away from you. We want you to be able to exercise your 2nd Amendment rights. But we also don’t want our children to succumb (to violence) because of your negligence,” says Johnson.

The coalition says urgent action is needed now to pass these proposals into law.

According to Kelly, one statewide climate survey shows that the percentage of teachers that feel safe at work, declined from 95%  to 75% since 2019.