PHOENIX — On Monday, education leaders and law enforcement hosted a safety summit to look for ways to make schools safer across the Valley.
The two-day event is hosted by the Arizona Business & Education Coalition, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and Arizona School Administrators. "I hope this will create additional conversations and partnerships relative to school safety,” said MCSO Sheriff Russ Skinner.“We have a school safety program that’s underway, there’s some legislative measures that were passed and some funding the sheriff’s office received,” he said.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes spoke at the event and stressed the need to address teen violence in the state.“We obviously have the threats of school shootings still out there and I’m worried it’s a matter of time before we have one of those school shootings in Arizona,” Mayes added. Earlier this year, Mayes tried passing a red flag law that would let schools seek a protection order against anyone who threatens a school.“It’s a very, narrowly tailored legislation that would allow us to seize a firearm for a short period of time when someone has threatened a school or made a threat against a school like the ones we’re seeing on social media,” she said.“Even the old D.A.R.E. program addressed bullying, a lot of the other social issues that involve our youth,” he said.