Senate Education committee kills bill requiring school sentinels, resource officers

A legislative attempt to make all 148 public K-12 school districts and all 706 public K-12 school buildings in South Dakota have a school sentinel or school resource officer failed Thursday.

Sen. Brent Hoffman’s (R-Hartford) Senate Bill 34 would’ve required that type of staffing, of which at this time only 11 school districts have school sentinels and only 50 school resource officers work across, according to testimony and discussion heard Thursday.

SB 34 was killed on a 5-2 vote in the Senate Education committee by Sens. Shawn Bordeaux (D-Mission), Sydney Davis (R-Burbank), Liz Larson (D-Sioux Falls), Tim Reed (R-Brookings) and Kyle Schoenfish (R-Scotland). Sens. Steve Kolbeck (R-Brandon) and Tom Pischke (R-Dell Rapids) had voted to save it.

More: Here's why South Dakota's program to arm school employees was canceled for the summer

In his opening argument, Hoffman said he recognized his bill was controversial and that the idea of guns in school makes people uncomfortable.

"The reality is if you have an armed violent threat attempting to enter your school and threatening your kids, the only thing that will repel and end that threat is another armed person,” Hoffman argued, however.

Testimony spans workforce shortages, local control issues

Proponents of the bill included Oglala Lakota County School District Superintendent Connie Kaltenbach and two parents with children in the Sioux Falls School District, Amy Bruner and Maria Agrawal.

Kaltenbach spoke about how her district has school resource officers and/or sentinels at each school site and touted her district as a “frontrunner” for safety in South Dakota.

Bruner, a member of the local Moms for Liberty chapter with students in Sioux Falls elementary, middle and high schools, spoke about how many perpetrators of school shootings are bullied and questioned how long it would be until a bullied student “decides to exact his or her revenge.”

More: Sioux Falls counselors spent last school day helping students process shooting in Texas

But members of the education lobby groups came out in full force Thursday to oppose the bil, including the Associated School Boards of South Dakota, the South Dakota Education Association, School Administrators of South Dakota, the Sioux Falls School District and the large school group.

ASBSD Executive Director Doug Wermedal said the bill would require hiring additional full-time employees at the same time there’s a workforce shortage across the state, and schools are already vigilant on safety issues. He also said the bill would mean a missed opportunity for local control on the issue of having school sentinels.

SDEA Executive Director Ryan Rolfs said SDEA has always been opposed to the school sentinel program, which he said places an educator in the position of being caring and nurturing to also being in the position to take the life of a student. He asked the committee to kill the bill and instead place more resources and funding into mental health efforts.

Sioux Falls School District lobbyist Sam Nelson said the cost of having a school resource officer or school sentinel at the more than 30 buildings in the district would be difficult. It places school districts in a place to carry out law enforcement duties or act as a “quasi-law enforcement,” Nelson said.

More: Are your school's employees armed? For some S.D. parents, the answer is unclear

A representative from the Bureau of Finance and Management also spoke in opposition to the bill, testifying it would cost anywhere from $2.1 million to have a school sentinel at each school, or up to $18.5 million to have a school resource officer at each school.

In his rebuttal, Hoffman said the arguments about local control are a “cop-out” and a way to “cast aspersions on a bill you don’t like,” which was countered by Sen. Reed in his discussion of the bill toward the end of the meeting.

Questioning by Sen. Schoenfish to SASD Executive Director Rob Monson led to the conclusion schools that can’t find a sentinel or school resource officer for the school year, let alone on a sick day, could be found in violation of the law, and therefore, are at risk of losing their accreditation, and thereby, their funding.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: Senate Education committee kills bill for more guns on campuses