Whereas, various state legislatures have passed laws authorizing school districts to allow educators or school volunteers to be armed at schools; and

Whereas, educators and school volunteers are not law enforcement—trained personnel; and

Whereas, educators and school volunteers should not be used to enforce security and police activities;

Therefore be it resolved, that AFSA opposes the arming of school personnel or school volunteers (other than sworn peace officers) at school sites.

Whereas, high-quality public education for all is an anchor of democracy, an economic necessity, a moral imperative and a fundamental civil right; and

Whereas, the school leaders who run our public schools are deeply committed to helping students build lives of great purpose and potential by instilling essential knowledge and the critical thinking necessary for becoming responsible citizens and active participants in civic life; and

Whereas, there has been a great need to support grieving students across the United States; and

Whereas, AFSA believes strongly that students’ personally identifiable data should be protected from data breaches by appropriate network security measures and from inappropriate uses by school service providers, including selling that data to third parties, using it to target advertisements directly to students and building profiles on students for commercial purposes; and

Whereas, AFSA believes that, on a small scale, public charter schools have the potential to provide innovative educational strategies that can be replicated across traditional public schools, but recognizes that recent research has found that charter schools' effectiveness has proven to be mixed at best; and

Whereas, AFSA recognizes the value of assessments in determining whether individual students and statistical subgroups, among them English Language Learners, are learning on grade level, to inform learning and to target resources to those students and subgroups that need additional assistance to grasp key concepts; and

Whereas, the American Federation of School Administrators (AFSA) is a member of the AFL-CIO ; and

Whereas, as part of the Labor Movement, AFSA fights to protect and strengthen the rights of all workers; and

Whereas, the wages, benefits and safe working conditions negotiated by unions have translated into improved benefits for all workers; and

Whereas, schools across the country are financially burdened by unfunded mandates, and facing escalating costs to provide Special Education and other services; and

Whereas, schools often receive insufficient funding to meet the requirements, and outlays of resources at the school level for these programs often far exceeds the federal and state sources that are intended to fund these programs; and

Whereas, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, overall, a higher percentage of principals with the highest level of experience at any school (10 or more years) left the profession in 200809, compared with principals with the lowest level of experience at any school (less than three years); and

Whereas, standards for school leaders with strong educational backgrounds have changed as a result of the reform movement; and

Whereas, for decades workers have been able to achieve retirement security because their retirement income was based on mutual responsibility among the federal government as provided by Social Security, employer-provided pensions and personal savings; and

Whereas, defined-benefit plans remain the soundest and most cost-effective vehicle for building and safeguarding retirement income security; and