VICE NewsVerified account

At least 215 school districts across the U.S. have adopted such policies since last February, a review of state and local policies has foundhttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

Nationwide, at least 466 districts now allow school staff to be armed, encompassing hundreds of thousands of students of all ageshttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

In many states, the decision to arm teachers or staff often rests with local school district officials who are left on their own to decide who should carry gunshttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

Districts are racing to arm staff even as there’s no definitive evidence that arming staff saves lives, no clear guidelines on how to implement these programs, and in some cases despite opposition from local law enforcement and school insurance carriershttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

The count of school districts is derived from interviews with state education departments, school board associations, research organizations, and news reports, but it almost certainly understates the trendhttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

“They don’t have to tell us what they’re doing,” a spokesperson from Colorado’s Department of Education told VICE News. “We don’t keep track. We don’t have to, and they don’t have to tell us.”http://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

“It is literally impossible to know how many there are, unless you went around asking every single school district,” said Josh Collins, director of communications at Minnesota’s Department of Educationhttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

In Texas, the number of districts arming school staff grew by 72 percent, from 172 districts in February to 303 by December. In Colorado, at least 30 school districts now arm school staff, compared to seven pre-Parklandhttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

This push to arm school staff comes despite the strong opposition of the nation’s largest teachers union, the National Education Association, which called the premise “ “ill-conceived, preposterous, and dangerous” in March of last yearhttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

For many poor or rural school districts, arming teachers or school staff is a cheaper alternative than paying salary and benefits for a school resource officer hired from the local police departmenthttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

While a school resource officer’s annual salary ranges from $35,000 to $75,000, arming a teacher usually amounts to the cost of the weapon and training, which can be as little as $250http://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

Even if the law permits arming teachers and administrators, and the board votes in favor, school administrators face a raft of hurdles to bringing guns into schoolshttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk 

In Oregon, schools that arm teachers and staff have to pay a premium to cover potential liabilities; $2,500 per year for civilians, and $1,500 for staff with military training or equivalent experiencehttp://bit.ly/2H3EGsk