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Parent Tommy Hyde urges Waverly City officials to tighten staff screening and rethink lockdowns
Summary
Tommy Hyde, a Waverly parent and former district student, told the council staff are not being psychologically evaluated and that current lockdown procedures are inadequate; she urged preventive steps and proposed locked firearms for trained staff as one option, and was advised to present the proposal to the school board.
Tommy Hyde, who identified herself as a mother of three and a former Waverly City School District student, told the council that school staff are not being psychologically evaluated before being assigned to work with children and that background checks and occasional drug testing do not detect mental distress. “None of those things will flag any kind of mental distress,” she said.
Hyde described examples from other districts—citing cases she said occurred in 2004, 2016 and 2023—and said those staff members “should have never been able to have had access to our children.” She said her request to run a selected-sample survey was denied by both her child’s school and her own school and that a voluntary survey she conducted found no staff reported receiving psychological evaluations.
Hyde also raised concern about school shootings and lockdown procedures. Citing data she said came from Statista and her own survey, she said: “There have been 58 school shootings in the United States as of October 15th,” and added that Waverly students had already experienced lockdowns this school year. She criticized the current lockdown practice—“sitting furthest away from the classroom door with the lights off and being as quiet as possible”—as insufficient and said parents and staff supported additional measures.
On arming staff, Hyde said she was not advocating open carry but proposed secure storage: staff could keep a firearm in a safe with a code behind their desk so trained personnel could respond to an active shooter. She said her survey indicated 73.3% of parents and the general public, and 52.7% of students, felt staff carrying firearms would make them safer. “As a mother, I can't grasp why we are risking that,” she said.
A council member responded that school policy must be adopted by the school board and suggested Hyde present her concerns to that body; the council thanked her for coming and presenting her views. The council did not take formal action on the proposals during this meeting.
Next steps: council members directed Hyde to raise the matter with the school board, which the responder said must adopt any school-level policy changes.
