By Eric Stock

NORMAL- In the wake of the Florida high school shooting, a local school district leader is calling for more mental health resources in schools.

Unit 5 Superintendent Mark Daniel said concerns about gun violence at schools can’t be solved with more guns. He told WJBC’s Scott Laughlin you have to get to the root cause.

PODCAST: Listen to Scott’s interview with Daniel on WJBC.

“You know, you can blame guns, you can blame this, but I really believe we need to figure out how to better connect with each and every one of our children,” Daniel explained.

Daniel said he would be okay with boosting the number of school resource officers, but says schools need to be able to bring in more mental health counselors and therapists to help students who feel disconnected.

Daniel is also willing to explore putting resource officers in schools, but he explained that’s not the answer to prevent the next mass shooting.

“You know, I’d love to sit down with our mayors, with our chief of police – we’ve already sat down with parent groups since last Wednesday, we’ve met with superintendents and so forth,” said Daniel. “And I think you need to bring the mental health specialists. Where are the psychiatrists in this discussion?”

Daniel said the problem is there are too many students who have lost connection at school and he says schools must be willing to spend more on mental health.

Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].