{"id":93476,"date":"2019-06-17T17:01:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T23:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-board-tables-talk-about-arming-staff\/"},"modified":"2019-06-17T17:01:54","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T23:01:54","slug":"durango-school-board-tables-talk-about-arming-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-board-tables-talk-about-arming-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango school board tables talk about arming staff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The Durango School District 9-R board will spend more time deciding whether to arm district employees.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Durango School District 9-R board decided not to make a decision Monday night about whether to arm district employees with guns.<\/p>\n

The board was weighing a resolution that would have declared the district\u2019s intent to permit employees to be designated as security officers and allow them to carry concealed weapons.<\/p>\n

The district\u2019s intent would be to arm employees in security roles with no other responsibilities, said Kathy Morris, safety and security officer for the district.<\/p>\n

School officials are not considering arming teachers, Superintendent Dan Snowberger said.<\/p>\n

Several concerned parents and other community members called on the district to take more time with the decision and consider the scientific evidence supporting arming school staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in having this be a truly democratic process,\u201d said Maya Kane, a parent and an attorney. She said she spoke on behalf of 12 other parents who were distressed about not having a chance to speak about the issue. The district had not communicated directly with parents about the resolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we had the chance to be here, we would be here en masse,\u201d said Kane, a member of a small but impassioned crowd.<\/p>\n

Several board members said the draft resolution on the agenda for a vote was a way for the group to discuss the measure, but they never intended to take action without more outreach.<\/p>\n

Board President Nancy Stubbs said she wants to learn more facts about the issue to help inform a decision about a topic that can be driven by emotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something that many schools across the country are doing,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have look and see if it\u2019s appropriate for our schools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arming school district employees has been brought up as part of meetings about school safety for two years, she said. Those meetings have reached a sampling of community members, district staff and others.<\/p>\n

To get additional feedback, Snowberger recommended a survey at the beginning of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not something we believe we should rush into,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The last survey the district completed about the issue found a third of the community supported arming school employees, he said.<\/p>\n

However, the district has continued to hear about the importance of arming school staff from parents who are concerned about moments when no police officers are on a school\u2019s campus to respond to emergencies, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s their rationale for saying we should consider something,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The district is not on a timeline to make a decision about arming security officers, Morris said.<\/p>\n

However, the board did review a document Monday outlining the possible minimum requirements security officers would have meet.<\/p>\n

The district drafted standards for security officers in response to shootings at Arapahoe, Platte Canyon and Columbine high schools, and most recently the STEM School in Denver, district documents say.<\/p>\n

The district may require candidates applying to be a security officer to complete a 24-hour firearms training within the previous 12 months, at a minimum.<\/p>\n

The training would include six hours of live fire range exercises and six hours of school active-shooter training, according to a document outlining the proposed standards.<\/p>\n

Board member Stephanie Moran said she would like to see law enforcement experience be a requirement for security officers allowed to carry guns on campuses.<\/p>\n

Some attendees questioned whether arming a school staff member would increase safety for students.<\/p>\n

Maria Doucette, a parent, said in an interview that airports see far fewer shootings than other settings because far fewer guns are allowed in those facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need evidence-based solutions, not fairy tales,\u201d she told the board.<\/p>\n

Nationally, support for arming school staff is split. A report by the Federal Commission on School Safety<\/a> backs guns in schools. It also outlined instances where schools and states have chosen to allow school staff to carry guns. For example, in Florida a school employee who does not work exclusively in the classroom can carry a weapon after receiving 176 hours of training.<\/p>\n

In one case, a district in Arkansas decided to arm school staff because it would take law enforcement 20 to 30 minutes to respond, the report said.<\/p>\n

A plan to increase school safety<\/a> backed by the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers warns against arming school staff.<\/p>\n

Highly trained police officers see their ability to shoot accurately decrease when they are involved in gunfights, the plan says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that a teacher or school staff member will be able to effectively respond to an active shooter incident is extremely doubtful,\u201d the plan says.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Concealed firearms resolution (PDF)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango district might survey community for feedback<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1086,150,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-firearms","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93476"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}