Des Moines, Iowa — Governor Kim Reynolds says she believes the State of Iowa could use federal pandemic relief money on additional school security measures.
Reynolds says banning semi-automatic weapons like the one used to kill two teachers and 19 students in a Texas school isn’t the cure to mass shootings.
Earlier this spring, Reynolds met with a company that digitizes the layout of schools, so those maps could be used by law enforcement in an active shooter situation. The state may also buy an app that lets students anonymously submit tips that a classmate may be threatening their school.
Reynolds signed a law in 2018 requiring every Iowa school to have a high-quality emergency plan, conduct annual reviews and practice the response to an active shooter. The Iowa Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management also conducts threat assessments.
Those could be done over the summer, according to Reynolds. Reynolds says there’s no single answer to what happened in Texas, but the governor says she is concerned by reports the shooter was in the school for an hour before law enforcement intervened.
The Texas shooter shared his plans on social media right before heading to the school and Reynolds says she’s troubled by news he may have indicated at the age of 14 that he’d go into a school with a gun when he was a senior.
Reynolds says the Governor’s School Safety Bureau is submitting applications for federal grants and is coordinating state agency efforts to plan for and respond to threats in Iowa schools.
