BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – Brevard County Superintendent Desmond Blackburn told News 6 partner Flordia Today he was uncomfortable with the Brevard County sheriff's plan of arming school staff in the wake of the Parkland high school shooting.
Twelve days after 17 people were gunned down at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Blackburn and Brevard County Sheriff Wayne Ivey stood side by side discussing the plan to prevent further violence on school campuses.
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Part of the security plan included Ivey's Sheriff Trained On-Site Marshal Program, or STOMP, which would recruit school faculty volunteers to become secret school marshals.
Until the interview with Florida Today, Blackburn had remained mostly silent on the issue. For the first time he said that he was not in favor of arming school staff.
"I have yet to meet the school employee who reports to me that they have additional time at work, that they not only have all the time they need to do their current job, but they have an extra amount of discretionary time that they can pick up some other duty, much less a life-or-death kind of duty," Blackburn told Florida Today.
Read Blackburn's full interview with Florida Today here.
Earlier this month, Ivey said the decision to arm school staff should be put on hold.
The school board later voted to hire security specialists. The security specialists will go through the same 176 hours of training Ivey proposed for school employees and carry guns during school hours.
Blackburn recently announced he is leaving the school district to lead a California nonprofit. He has been superintendent of Brevard Public Schools since 2015. His last day will be no later than the start of the 2018-19 school year.
The Brevard County School Board is seeking applicants to fill Blackburn's position on its website.