Brevard Public Schools released results from its survey about arming staff.
Teachers and students are opposed to a program that would arm school employees, while parents narrowly support the program, according to a survey by the Brevard County School District.
As part of the survey, students, teachers, employees and parents were asked to answer "yes" or "no" to the following question: Do you support or oppose arming and training school administrators and support employees to serve as guardians who could respond with deadly force to campus shooters?
The survey was shared with every Brevard Public Schools employee and family with an email address on file twice over a period of 10 days. A link to the survey was also posted on Facebook. District staff acknowledged that the survey could be taken multiple times from the same computer.
-Of the 2,228 school district employees who responded, 57 percent said they oppose the program, while 36 percent said they support it and 7 percent said they were not sure.
-Of the 1,195 teachers who took the survey, 59 percent said they oppose the program, while 34 percent said they support it.
-Of the 281 students who took the survey, 72 percent said they oppose the program, while 28 percent said they support it.
-Of the 9,750 parents who took the survey, 50 percent said they support the program, 47 percent they oppose it and 3 percent said they were not sure. However, the school district also filtered results to eliminate duplicate responses. By that calculation of 6,960 respondents, 56 percent of parents said they support the program, 40 percent said they oppose it and 4 percent were not sure.
-Overall, of the 12,385 community members who took the survey, 47 percent said they support the program, 49 percent said they oppose it and 4 percent were not sure.
Some residents have complained that the survey is not reliable because it was shared on Facebook pages where anyone could access it, and users could take the survey multiple times if they wanted to.
"Again, this was not a scientific, random-sample survey. It was a questionnaire sent to about 71,000 BPS staff and households over 10 days to give the highest possible number of stakeholders a voice on this issue," district spokesman Matt Reed said in an email. "BPS took several steps to monitor and test our results and have only shared findings in which we have confidence."
In his analysis of the survey findings, Reed pointed out that support for the S.T.O.M.P. proposal is strongest in the northern parts of the county, where 61 percent of residents support the program. However, support is weakest in the south beaches and southeast mainland, where 60 percent of resident oppose the program.
A previous poll by the school district asked employees if they would be willing to volunteer for the program. Out of the 700 non-teacher employees who took the survey, 267 said they were willing to volunteer as marshals. About nine percent of the respondents said they have previously worked in law enforcement or in the military.
School employees who volunteer for S.T.O.M.P. would go through 176 hours of training with the Brevard Sheriff's Office and have to pass psychological screenings, background checks, drug tests and interviews. They would be armed and allowed to carry a gun at school. Their identities would be known by school administrators and first-responders but not by parents or students. Teachers would not be eligible for the program.
The program was devised by Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey, however, Ivey has since recommended the school board table the program and focus on hiring school resource officers.
A new law put in place after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in which 17 people were killed requires either an SRO, school marshal or private security personnel at every school by the start of the upcoming school year.
The School Board is set to decide whether to adopt the program at its meeting Tuesday night and will also discuss another option to hire full-time School Safety and Security Specialists, who would undergo the same training under the S.T.O.M.P. but whose identities would be known to the public.