Williamson County School Board Presses Legislators on Safety Issues

School safety is still at the top of minds of students, parents and educators following last week’s fatal Antioch High School shooting. 

On Monday, students from across the state descended on the Tennessee State Capitol to mourn the death of 16-year-old Josselin Corea Escalante, and demand gun reform.

Last week and just two days after the shooting, the Williamson County School Board of Education held a discussion on everything from safety to vouchers with the Williamson County Legislative delegation: Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson, Rep. Gino Bulso, Rep. Jake McCalmon, Rep. Lee Reeves, and Sen. Joey Hensley. Rep. Todd Warner was not present at the meeting. He told the Williamson Scene he had a prior engagement in Marshall County.

“I'm really interested in expanding background checks and increasing secure firearm storage,” WCS 7th District School Board Member Melissa Wyatt said. “I feel like we are doing our best to make our schools amazing places of learning and encouragement, and there is only so much we can physically do in the schools, but what can we do to keep the guns out of children's hands, and away from the children?”

That question was met with some five seconds of silence from legislators, until Hensley spoke up, reiterating some measures that were implemented following the 2023 Covenant School shooting, measures that many Tennesseans saw as more symbolic rather than concrete public safety improvements.

Bulso questioned concerns cited by Wyatt from the location sharing app iSharing, which called Tennessee the fourth most dangerous state for children, a ranking based on crime statistics, including kidnappings, missing children’s cases and school shootings.

A 2023 Tennessee Department of Health study showed that firearms are the leading cause of death for children in Tennessee.

Bulso has previously publicly pushed back against data that shows that guns are the leading cause of death for children in America, specifically arguing that in Tennessee violence and gun crime in Memphis and Shelby County is disproportionate to gun violence throughout the rest of the state, a position he reiterated during the WCS meeting.

“Is there anything that any of you are looking to put forth or propose so that that parent, or another loved one, or someone who has someone that is showing signs of mental distress, who has [fire]arms, can go through a legal process and temporarily take away their weapons before they do something?” District 10 Board member Eric Welch asked.

Again, Hensley was the most receptive to the question, saying that legislators have funded more school counselor positions.

“It's still very difficult to catch someone when they're in those early stages,” Hensley said. “Looking back, hindsight is 20/20, we're seeing a lot of issues that should have been red flags with [the AHS shooter].”

Welch and Johnson had a spirited conversation and at times debate about the legal framework and failings that led up to the Covenant School and AHS shootings.

That conversation quickly devolved into more of an argument between Welch and Bulso after Bulso argued that gun violence is due (at least in part) to an “underlying societal problem,” citing “divorce on demand” and the lack of “prayer in schools.”

“I had hoped they’d be more sympathetic to our community given the two recent shootings here in Middle Tennessee,” Wyatt later told the Williamson Scene. “I would like to have heard more about the opportunities they have – as legislators – to make our communities safer. I know safer gun laws won’t solve all of the problems, but data tells us it would significantly improve safety for our children.”

District Perspective

“This week, the bulk of our discussion has been about school safety-When one of our neighbors has a tragedy such as that, it it consumes a lot of thought and a lot of discussion,” WCS Superintendent Jason Golden told the Williamson Scene.

“I'm convinced we'll always be working on improving safety, in part because the moment you implement a safety procedure, you have to be thinking about, okay, how might somebody who's who's intentionally planning to cause harm might try to get around that safety measure.”

Golden said that the district is currently focused on improving access control with an electronic badging system to control who can get into specific doors, and past measures such as installing bulletproof film on windows.

“We make those decisions in conjunction with our local law enforcement, with our emergency management, and there's actually a state staff member who supports each county's work, and so through that professional team, we make priority plans so we have those discussions ongoing.”