JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval County School Board members could consider a policy change that would allow employees, administrators, parents, and contractors to keep certain firearms secured inside their vehicles on school property.<\/p>\n
The proposal comes two weeks after Baldwin Middle-Senior High School Principal Michael Smith was criminally cited and reassigned to home duties after a loaded gun was found inside his vehicle on campus.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The district\u2019s current policy prohibits the possession of firearms on all district properties. Under the proposed revision, administrators, employees, independent contractors, and parents could possess a legally owned firearm inside a vehicle while the vehicle is parked on school property, as long as the firearm is securely encased or otherwise not readily accessible for immediate use.<\/p>\n The proposed policy would not extend that exception to students.<\/p>\n RELATED: Baldwin Middle-Senior High School principal reassigned after firearm found in his vehicle on campus<\/a><\/p>\n While Florida law generally prohibits firearms on school property, state law contains exceptions that can allow certain firearms to remain inside vehicles. The proposed district policy cites those state law exceptions.<\/p>\n Jude Bruno, president of the Florida PTA, questioned what the change would mean for student safety and said Duval should address that question before changing its rules.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore changing its rules, Duval should explain how this would actually make students safer and how would it be enforced,\u201d Bruno said. \u201cFlorida PTA supports trained school resource officers with clearly defined safety responsibilities. Allowing an employee to keep personal firearms in their cars at school is different.\u201d<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n Bruno also said parents should have a voice in the discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that is a policy stance the district wants to take, then that is a conversation in which the parents who send their children, who send their kids to school, needs to be a part of,\u201d Bruno said.<\/p>\n At least one Baldwin parent was more open to the proposed change.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n \u201cIn my opinion, I kind of feel like it\u2019s kind of smart to have employees packing in the parking lot with all the chaos and the wickedness of this world. I get that,\u201d the parent said.<\/p>\n All seven Duval County School Board members were contacted with questions about whether the proposed revision was connected to Smith\u2019s case and which board member introduced the idea, but no responses were received.<\/p>\n The district\u2019s Policy Handbook Review Committee is scheduled to meet Thursday, October 1.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Duval County School Board members could consider a policy change that would allow employees, administrators,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[161384,18644,164509,7840,43680,4169,92406,12909,18583,164507,794,639,28,164508,969,116,118,117,56656,634,62354,5242,56658,7842],"class_list":["post-415219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_is","tag-baldwin","tag-baldwin_middle_senior_high_school","tag-ben_becker","tag-ben_tanika","tag-board","tag-bruno","tag-deja","tag-deja_mayfield","tag-desia_mayfield","tag-duval","tag-duval_county","tag-florida","tag-florida_pta","tag-jack","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-jude_bruno","tag-local","tag-michael_smith","tag-president","tag-pta","tag-tanika_hughes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}